Cameron Kerr: Collecting the Unconscious features new work by Cameron Kerr that explores vernacular image systems, memory and canonical forms in a variety of mediums alongside work drawn from private collections. Primarily a sculptor, Kerr gives form to the complexities of grasping truth of material, truth of information and truth of ideas. If, as Friedrich Nietzsche once pointed out, “Truth is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms,” in Kerr’s work we find a search for universals that in the end remind us that truth is not objective but rather a collection of subjective human constructs. This new work is shown alongside a curated selection of work by Kerr drawn from local private collections. The exhibition proposes that there is a collective unconscious at play in the processes an artist engages in and correspondingly, in the way collectors collect.

BIOGRAPHIES

Born in Campbell River, British Columbia, Vancouver based artist Cameron Kerr’s practice moves between sculpture, painting, photo-collage, and found-object assemblage to stage a dialogue between modernist form, vernacular image culture, and perceptual inquiry. He studied sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara in Italy in the mid-1990s, later completed a BFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2007 and an MFA at the University of British Columbia in 2019, and has lived and worked in Berlin and Lisbon. His work has been exhibited in Germany and Italy, and he has presented solo projects at the Kelowna Art Gallery, Comox Valley Public Art gallery, and Trapp Projects, Vancouver, while public commissions and installations in Vancouver and Kamloops extend his practice into civic space.

Patrik Andersson is an Associate Professor in Critical + Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University. He teaches contemporary art and ideas which are informed by his freelance activities as an author, art critic, curator and art consultant. He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of British Columbia and has since 1997 operated the independent curatorial project Trapp (www.trappprojects.com).

TRAPP PROJECTS was initiated by Patrik Andersson in 1997 as a curatorial platform on which to introduce local and international artists to as wide an audience as possible, while not being limited by the mandates of traditional exhibition spaces. Over the years, this project has led to collaborations with a wide range of people and spaces to highlight both emerging and established practices.

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www.trappprojects.com

Image (lead): Cameron Kerr, Retinal Void (detail), 2025. Acrylic and Inkjet on Canvas, 24x18 inches. Edition of 1/3 (each unique). Collection of Maryon Adelaar. Image Courtesy of the Artist.

Image (seconday): Cameron Kerr, Ghost on Deck, 2015. Cedar, acrylic, 64 x 23 x 16 inches. Collection of Ian Penn & Sandy Whitehouse-Penn Image Courtesy the artist and Trapp Project