An unidentified writer made the claim a few years ago that “nobody does anything interesting until they are well into their thirties.” If you are looking for evidence to the contrary, you might want to turn your attention to the current exhibition at Secret Eight Project Space by the newly minted (like last week) ACAD graduate Nicole Brunel.
Similarly emergent, Secret Eight is a brand new gallery in the basement of upscale skateboard shop LESS17. Curator Austin Taylor is operating the venue on that increasingly fertile “not commercial, not artist-run centre” ground, consistently producing surprising projects with the promise of more to come. The space is a glassed-off room alongside the retail area with a cement floor, brick walls and what might be a loading dock. It’s basically an industrial cube. Brunel uses this unusual environment to her advantage, developing it into a strange and immersive environment through a series of sculptures, site-specific touches, and an animation. 
Nicole Brunel, Mattress Poster, 2014
Venus in the Heat Shadow (Brunel’s titles are uniformly great) employs a kind of cartoon formalism: serious engagement with materials, ceramics, textiles, found objects, and an extreme attention to detail (like little green plastic antennas sticking out the loading dock’s expansion foam). The exhibition is also seriously funny with its deconstructed Simpsons-esque send up of the modern day backyard BBQ. Her three-dimensional work is compelling, but Brunel’s absurdist sensibility is distilled most pointedly in the short animation Mattress Poster. While you could draw visual connections to artists as disparate as Seth Scriver and Valérie Blass, the young artist demonstrates a unique perspective bolstered by her prolific practice. She is, as they say, one to watch.
Secret Eight Project Space: http://www.secreteight.ca/
Nicole Brunel: Venus in the Heat Shadow continues until June 20.
Sarah Todd is a curator currently based in Calgary. Formerly the curator of Media Arts at Western Front, she has also worked at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, XPACE Cultural Centre and The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Sarah has produced projects with a range of organizations including Vtape, Kunstverein Munchen, The Goethe Institute, The Pacific Cinematheque, Glenbow Museum and The Illingworth Kerr Gallery. She was formerly one of Akimblog’s Art + Tech correspondents and can be followed on Twitter @sarahannetodd.
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Nicole Brunel at Secret Eight Project Space, Calgary
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