Kelly Andres: Gleaning the Blue-Green

Mitchell Art Gallery

Kelly Andres, Gleaning Outwards: Reals, 2026. Original cyanotypes from the artist-created training dataset. Digital collage from scans of cyanotype prints on watercolour paper. Courtesy of the Artist.

Kelly Andres: Gleaning the Blue-Green

September 18 – December 5, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 17, 2026, 6–8pm
Mitchell Art Gallery, MacEwan University, Edmonton

In Gleaning the Blue-Green, Kelly Andres experiments with the ways we seek understanding about the living systems of plants and animals around us. Drawing from her own efforts to learn about an important ecosystem close to her rural home east of Edmonton—the wetland—the artist’s creative fodder is the methods often used in scientific study. Andres has created this series of sculpture, video, photography, and performance from gathering and growing water lentils and spirulina, collecting water samples, and building datasets. Rather than generating data intended for analysis and supporting empirical knowledge, Andres instead uses these artistic interpretations of scientific methods to ask important questions about how and what is knowable—what it is that we can glean—about living systems. The ongoing maintenance of the plants in the gallery is a performance of care between the artist and her living subjects. Andres’ investment in relational care opens space for us to consider what might be required of such relationships as our climate continues shifting.

Kelly Andres, Gleaning Outwards: Checkpoint 001104, 2026. StyleGAN-generated images at training checkpoint 001104, trained on the artist’s cyanotype dataset using Autolume. Courtesy of the Artist.

Join us for an opening reception to celebrate the exhibition on Thursday, September 17, 6–8pm, at Mitchell Art Gallery. Visit Kelly Andres: Gleaning the Blue-Green at Mitchell Art Gallery at MacEwan University. Gallery hours are 12–5pm, Tuesday to Saturday, with extended hours until 7pm on Thursdays. Admission is free and all are welcome.

We acknowledge the support of the Province of Alberta through Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

About the Artist

Kelly J. Andres is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and researcher whose practice brings ecology, technology, and perception into conversation. Working across installation, experimental media, sound, scent, living systems, and machine learning, she creates speculative environments that explore how attention can shift relationships between human and more-than-human worlds. Her recent projects investigate wetlands, lichens, microbial life, sensory ecologies, and the material infrastructures of computation, often combining field research with responsive technologies and biological processes. Andres holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Concordia University, Mtl., where her research focused on multispecies companionship, ecological listening, and the concept of tender curation. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at MUTEK Montréal, PAVED Arts, EMMEDIA, and the Foreman Art Gallery. Her practice has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

About Mitchell Art Gallery

The John and Maggie Mitchell Art Gallery is MacEwan University’s public art gallery dedicated to engaging timely conversations and community through contemporary art. The gallery supports interdisciplinary, experiential learning for the public and for the university community. Located in the heart of downtown Edmonton in MacEwan University’s Allard Hall, Mitchell Art Gallery programming also serves the local community through emphasizing safe, collaborative and relevant opportunities for learning and visual literacy development.

Mitchell Art Gallery is located in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (amiskwacîwâskahikan), Treaty Six Territory. We acknowledge that the land on which we gather in Treaty Six Territory is the traditional gathering place for many Indigenous people. We honour and respect the history, languages, ceremonies and culture of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit who call this territory home.

Mitchell Art Gallery
11-121, Allard Hall
MacEwan University
11110 – 104 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5K 1M9
www.MacEwan.ca/MitchellArtGallery
mitchellartgallery@macewan.ca

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Accessibility:
The Mitchell Art Gallery and Allard Hall are accessible spaces with automatic doors, elevators, and accessible washrooms. Detailed accessibility information can be found on our website.