Susan Hobbs

Usher the Fall of the House marks Kevin’s second collaborative effort with his brother Robert, an experimental filmmaker. Once again Kevin explores the uncanny within the familiar with his assembly of sculptures. Here, the mirror image is a consistent formal motif carried over from Kevin’s and the brothers’ earlier bodies of work. Previously, Kevin’s diminutive models of clapboard houses and rusted ships mirrored along horizontal axes became enigmatic structures, hermetically sealed and tomb-like. For this exhibition, Kevin and Robert continue in that vein, take a cue from Edgar Allen Poe’s disquieting story, The Fall of the House of Usher, to revisit these inaccessible interiors. With wallpaper that twitches with animated birds, a pair of dressers stacked end-over-end, or an interior seemingly filling with water, these objects and projected images allude to Poe’s themes of haunting and doubling. But what the Yates’ work suggests is these surreal vignettes are less attributable to paranormal activity and rather are projections of some inner anxiety or imbalance.


Kevin Yates was born in Owen Sound, Ontario in 1974. He has had solo exhibitions at Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa), Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery (Owen Sound), Artspeak (Vancouver), YYZ Artists’ Outlet (Toronto), ODD Gallery (Dawson City, Yukon), Rodman Hall Art Centre (St. Catharines, Ontario) among others. Recently his work was included in It is What it is at the National Gallery of Canada. As well, he has previously participated in group exhibitions at Jordan Schnitzer Museum (Eugene), The University Galleries at Illinois State University (Chicago), Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), Hallwalls (Buffalo) and Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. He currently lives in Grafton, Ontario and is a faculty member in the department of Visual Arts at York University.