Tangible Fragments – Kara Henry and Michelle Sylvestre

Tangible Fragments – Kara Henry and Michelle Sylvestre

Tangible Fragments – Kara Henry and Michelle Sylvestre

Kara Henry

My artistic practice revolves around exploring the depiction of public and private experiences, as well as the subjective lived reality of these experiences. Specifically, the dichotomy between the way these experiences can be lived through and shared communally, but can only be perceived and understood individually. The simultaneity of connection and disconnection.
My artistic practice is focused on exploring the bodie’s role in perspective. I focus on making work as a way of metabolizing the world as I struggle to express, make sense of, and process many life changes and events. Most recently the perspective shift that happens through care, and dialog between receiving and giving care. I am interested in the dichotomy of ubiquitous human experiences being lived and interpreted by individuals; the liminal space between self and other.

My work plays with a mix of materials to contrast and complement their differing qualities, such as the familiarity and intimacy of textile, the fragile and transmutable nature of ceramics, or the immediacy and directness of painting and drawing. The interplay of material works to change the dynamic between body, space and object, and to play with ambiguity and association. Through these explorations, my work becomes a shared journey and dynamic conversation between the tangible and the intangible, the shared and the personal.

Kara Henry is a multidisciplinary artist honored to live and work on the traditional territories of the Mohkinstsis, or Blackfoot Confederacy. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and a Bachelor of Education (BEd) from the University of Lethbridge. Kara’s practice is informed by her life experience with chronic illness in dialogue with former roles as an athlete, educator, and coach. Kara has shown work in galleries across western Canada, has completed several curatorial projects.

Kara’s work is rooted in an ongoing exploration of the body’s role in perception, interpretation, and understanding of the world. Her work has evolved from a drawing focused practice, exploring the visual expression of mental and emotional processing of relationships and social structures, into a drawing-informed sculptural approach.

Her experience in athletics, both as an athlete and a coach, has significantly influenced her artistic journey. The spatial awareness inherent in sports, combined with her understanding of how bodies interact with others and their environment have expanded and deepened her conceptual framework. As an educator, Kara developed a keen awareness of the ways in which perception, interaction, and personal experience intersect, and she now applies these insights to her practice. The relationships between the body, space, and materiality are central to her exploration of perception and the often-overlooked aspects of human experience.

Michelle Sylvestre

As an interdisciplinary artist my practice examines identity as fluid, relational, and continually negotiated. Working across public art, and exhibitions, I consider how personal and collective narratives shape our understanding of ourselves and one another. My work explores the tensions between individual autonomy and communal belonging, how identity is experienced internally and performed outwardly, and what is remembered, forgotten, preserved, and transformed.

Concept drives my material practice. I have worked with a variety of mediums such as textiles, ceramics, metal, plastic, glass, video, audio, and found objects, often selecting materials and processes for their capacity to complicate, extend, and embody the ideas at the centre of each work. Repetition and accumulation are recurring strategies within this process, allowing meaning to emerge through material, gesture, and form.

Tangible Fragments marks a new chapter in this exploration, where care, memory, and connection act as personal and collective frameworks for understanding the complexities of identity. Engaging in care has been a deeply ingrained aspect of my identity, one that I have quietly embodied for the better part of 20 years, softly metabolizing and shaping my perspective and approach to both personal and creative endeavors. This work has allowed me to investigate and express the complexities, messiness, and tension in care, of which often remain unseen under the idealistic portrayal of care. The material tension between felted wool and ceramics mirrors these complexities, as the softness of the textile and the hardness of fired clay emerge through the forceful processes of repeated needling and extreme heat. Each process requires its own form of sustained labour and care, complicating the tension between tenderness and violence embedded in the final products.

Across both public art and exhibition contexts, I approach identity as an ongoing process of negotiation shaped by experience, introspection, and connection. I embrace ambiguity, contradiction, and uncertainty as conditions through which understandings of self and relationships to others are continually formed and reconfigured.

Michelle Sylvestre holds a BFA in Art (2017) and an MFA in New Media (2021) from the University of Lethbridge, located on Treaty 7 Territory, Alberta. Currently pursuing a PhD in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought, her research investigates systemic heteropatriarchal and colonial biases in artificial intelligence (AI). As an interdisciplinary artist, Sylvestre’s public art and exhibition work often examine identity and community through installation, sculpture, and performance. She works across textiles, ceramics, video, audio, and found objects, allowing the material language of each work to emerge from its conceptual foundation.

Sylvestre is a Researcher in Residence with the Indigenous-led Abundance Intelligence Niitsitapi Pod at the Centre for Indigenous Art, Research, and Technology(CIART), and she teaches in the New Media Department as a sessional instructor at the University of Lethbridge. She is honoured to be the first student from the University of Lethbridge to be awarded the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship.

Date:September 5th, 2026  -  October 23rd, 2026

Location:Casa - Main Gallery

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