Vanessa McKernan | Dusk
September 13–27

Reception: Saturday, September 13 @ 3 - 5 pm,
RSVP your attendance to responses@wallspacegallery.ca

Presales open Saturday, Sept. 6 at 10 am, in-person, online, and over the phone at 613-729-0003. Please contact the gallery if you'd like to view the works in-person.

Wall Space Gallery is excited to present Dusk, the latest solo exhibition by Vanessa McKernan. Dusk invites us into a world where the seen and the felt intertwine. Through luminous oil paintings and dreamlike figuration, McKernan explores the quiet transitions that shape our inner and outer lives. The exhibition unfolds in the in-between moments: where day gives way to night, clarity yields to reverie, and waking drifts toward dreaming.

At the heart of McKernan’s practice is a deep inquiry into relationship. Her paintings reflect on the emotional and spiritual threads that connect us to one another, to ourselves, and to the natural world. Figures emerge in landscapes that feel both familiar and otherworldly, drawn from memory, imagination, and direct observation. These spaces are not anchored to a single place or time. Instead, they evoke the liminality of myths half-remembered, stories told through gesture, color, and atmosphere rather than fixed narrative.

McKernan’s studio process mirrors this openness. Her work begins with a clear framework, often a theme or intention, but evolves through intuitive engagement with her materials. Her figures become vessels for layered experiences, while her settings blend real and imagined geographies. Whether rendered on canvas, panel, or paper, her surfaces retain the tactile presence of her hand and the emotional resonance of her inquiry.

Dusk is a meditation on transformation. It offers a pause, a soft threshold, where viewers are invited to reconnect with their own fleeting moments of wonder, vulnerability, and connection. These are paintings to be felt as much as seen.


Curator
Haruka Toyoda

Featured work:
Dusk, Oil on canvas
Evening Snow, Oil on panel