Kim Kennedy Austin: Booster Club

February 7-April 20, 2025

This solo exhibition by Kim Kennedy Austin centers upon the artist’s interests in 20th century advertising, media, and popular culture in myth and meaning making. Drawing on a range of movies and books through this body of work, she explores topics such as conformity, consumer capitalism, risk, and blind faith.

Kim Kennedy Austin employs techniques of drawing and craft to express issues of labour, seriality, and automation. With a “make-do” attitude, she pairs readily-found supplies from hobby and dollar stores with source material quoted from across popular 20th century print periodicals and media. Selected line drawings, illustrations, and text are edited, redrawn, and blown-up to speak to the changing nature and perception of craft, the applied arts, and women’s work over time. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, West Vancouver Art Museum, Burnaby Art Gallery, and Global Affairs Canada. Austin acknowledges that her work takes place on the unceded, traditional and current homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Kim Kennedy Austin: Booster Club
A softcover, colour publication for this exhibition is available featuring texts by Robin Laurence and exhibition curators Jennifer Cane and Emily Dundas Oke. Purchase a copy at the Burnaby Art Gallery or email [email protected] to place an order.

Price: $25

Images: Kim Kennedy Austin: Booster Club, 2025, Burnaby Art Gallery. Photography by Blaine Campbell.