Nicole Dextras: Ice, Ice Baby

Environmental artist Nicole Dextras deconstructed garments and froze them in blocks of ice for a project called IceShifts.  An instructor at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, she is well-known for installations that reflect the elements, including her compostable garment Little Green Dress project.  (see it here)

These works from Ottawa’s Winterlude represent “the spirit of our resourceful forefathers who initiated the first outdoor winter carnivals,” Dextras says. “The six figures that dance to entice the sun to return stand as a beacon of hope, from the dark towards the light.” (Images above and below from her Facebook, here.)

The garments encased in ice in IceShifts, take on a skeletal quality comparable to a forensic examination under a microscope. Seams and buttons serve as clues to an internalized landscape which appears impenetrable one moment and precariously fragile the next. This frozen wardrobe acts as a metaphor for the multilayered affinities between the self and the environment.  – Artist Statement

Dextras lists the materials in each ice work on her website, here and here.  She has also gained attention for ice typography, called Signs of Change, a solo exhibition of ice words left to melt in the urban landscape, like the one below.  It reflects Vancouver’s Coal Harbor real-estate boom.