CATHY BUSBY & GARRY NEILL KENNEDY: UH-HUH/SORRY

CATHY BUSBY & GARRY NEILL KENNEDY
UH-HUH/SORRY

Opening reception: Thurs, Jan 15, 6-9PM
Exhibition: Jan 15 – Feb 28, 2026

Artist Talk: Cathy Busby in Conversation with Germaine Koh
Sun, Jan 25, 2PM

Wil Aballe
1375 Railspur Alley, Vancouver, BC
Hours: Tues – Sat, 12-5 PM

For inquiries please contact Wil Aballe, wil@waapart.com

This exhibition titled UH-HUH/SORRY, work of Cathy Busby and Garry Neill Kennedy, includes a selection of prints from Busby’s SORRY series (2005-2014) and Kennedy’s SEIZED suite of prints (1991); as well as a host of WORKING DRAWINGS mapping Kennedy’s large wall-text paintings of the 1990s to 2000s, including UH-HUH (S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, 1992), and I DON’T WANT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE (Centre A, Vancouver, 2008). Busby’s ATRIUM  prints (2010) question art gallery display practices and were developed during her artist-residency project at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. This dynamic installation at Wil Aballe includes WE ARE SORRY fragments, and brings together the works alongside a selection of printed matter, highlighting the conceptual processes of this artist couple. 

Bios:

Cathy Busby has a longtime personal and political interest in pain and care. From her extensive work on public apologies, to her humorous yet poignant collection of self-help books, her energetic, multi-modal work addresses timely and critical issues. She attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA 1984), where she directed the College’s Anna Leonowens Gallery. Busby holds an MA in Media Studies and a PhD in Communication from Concordia University (1999). She was a Fulbright Scholar at New York University, and a Contemporary Art Researcher at the National Gallery of Canada (1997-98). She has exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally in New York, Beijing, Berlin and Melbourne. She lives in Vancouver. www.cathybusby.ca

Garry Neill Kennedy (1935–2021) was a distinguished Canadian conceptual artist, educator and long-time Nova Scotian, who lived his later years in Vancouver. In addition to his active career as an artist, Kennedy taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University) for more than forty years, while serving as the institution’s president from 1967 to 1990. He exhibited widely, including a retrospective Work of Four Decades (2000-2001) at the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. He was the recipient of the Order of Canada and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. An upcoming travelling retrospective of his six decades of work is scheduled to open at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2027. www.garryneillkennedy.ca