Exhibition dates: February 10-April 9, 2026
Exhibition opening and gallery talk: Wednesday, February 11, 6:30pm
Dream-Home is a collaborative exhibition that examines the evolving tensions between the constructed environment, environmental concerns, and the fragile concept of "home" in an era of profound transformation. Through distinct yet deeply interconnected visual languages,Tracy Templeton, Derek Besant, and Betsy Stirratt explore overlapping territories of habitation, disruption, and memory — each offering a perspective on the precarious intersection of domestic aspiration and ecological reality.
Collectively, these works form a visual dialogue that spans imagined spaces, aerial views, and scorched terrain. What begins as a meditation on landscape and housing evolves into a broader inquiry into the systems, both visible and obscured, which shape where and how we live.
Tracy Templeton presents prints of spectral architectural forms embedded within ambiguous, fabric-like landscapes. These minimalist structures, rendered in monochrome and situated within digitally altered environments, evoke a liminal space where the concept of "house" has become detached from the warmth associated with "home." The softly shifting terrain and diffused atmosphere invite a reading that is both emotional and architectural, touching on memory, aspirations, and uncertainty. A translucent overlay, reminiscent of construction mesh, zoning grids, or fencing, traces the forces that silently shape our living environments.
The work exists in a dream-like state, suspended between presence and absence, comfort and alienation. Her houses are akin to ghost stories: silent echoes of what once existed or what was once aspired to in a world where home ownership or affordability remains a distant dream for many. They raise quiet but persistent questions about how shelters are imagined, visualized, and ultimately realized—or not—in the landscapes we construct.
Derek Besant, Professor Emeritus at the Alberta University of the Arts, highlights the consequences of the housing crisis from another perspective. His nocturnal suburban streetscapes, almost staged as film set scenes, echo the eerie television reporting that has become more global, with wildfires as consequences of drought and climate side effects on cities. The haunting images of houses consumed by
fire hover between terrible beauty and the flashpoints of reality experienced when wildfires leap across stands of forests and begin devouring dwellings in cul-de-sacs.
The identity we associate with shelter, safety, family and “home” in these works, underlines how fragile boundaries are crossed that can devastate communities. Architectural housing plans to address new ways of designing more fire-proof homes are creating new ways to consider alternative materials, site designations, and utilities for future developers. Produced as fragmented architectural grid images in UV industrial thermal inks on recycled synthetic card sections–invite viewers to consider what is missing as a metaphor for loss and to fill in the image in their mind.
Betsy Stirratt turns her gaze earthward, using aerial photographs and drone footage to capture the sprawl of suburban expansion upon the landscape. Her work maps the overwhelming density and repetition of human development, highlighting the erasure of natural landscapes and ecosystems beneath the rigid grids of asphalt, rooftops, and artificial lawns. The imagery recalls scientific diagrams, floor plans and memory imprint— evoking DNA strands, cell structures, and virus formations, underscoring the parasitic nature of urban spread. Using repetitive imagery of tract housing and views of barely plundered landscapes, these works allude to the juxtaposition of current thinking about environmental preservation. Using machine-made vinyl, the works layer landscape images to explore the complex and often contradictory relationship humans have with nature, serving as both a reflection and a call to consider the lasting impacts we have on the environment.
The exhibition transcends conventional display methodologies by incorporating non-traditional materials, such as vinyl, mylar, and acetate, along with textured papers and collages. These materials and forms evoke the sleek language of housing advertisements while simultaneously highlighting their ephemeral and often disposable nature.
