TRICIA WASNEY IN RESIDENCE AT THE MCLOUGHLIN GARDENS
Each summer, the Comox Valley Art Gallery holds a curated residency program to support the creative practices of artists participating in ongoing convergent programming at the gallery. The McLoughlin Gardens Society collaborates with CVAG by making the McLoughlin Gardens seaside artist residence available for the gallery to house its visiting artists. In May 2025, artist Tricia Wasney returned for her third residency here.
TRICIA WASNEY’S ARTIST STATEMENT
The residencies at McLoughlin Gardens have had a profound impact on my art practice. Attending over three years has deepened my relationship to the Comox Valley and broadened my contextual and material skills. The first year, 2023, was pure discovery from the ocean cottage and surroundings to the thrift stores in Courtney and Comox. I began to use reclaimed materials a few years before this but the experience of being away for a month from my studio, tools and materials led me to experiment even more with using things at hand. This became an exciting challenge that has now become a significant part of my practice as I seek to work more sustainably. In 2024 and 2025, the discovery continued but became more fine-tuned as I began to conceive of a body of work that would reflect my impressions and ideas.
My work almost always comes back to being about place, how landscapes affect us, how we lay our identity upon them. The ocean environment is very different from my day to day prairie one but there are also many crossovers. I’m creating a number of “companion pieces” using similar materials from each place to explore not only our differences but our similarities. It is a broader statement about the movement of people and objects, suggesting the persistence and endurance of our histories and the sharing and movement of ideas and practices. The works that have evolved over the last few years are an attempt to honour the importance of each in the work I create and to make the experiences relevant to others.
Tricia Wasney at the shore, courtesy of the artist.