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	Mixed Messages Peter Dykhuis April 23rd- May 17th, 2008 Reception: Wednesday April 23rd, 6-9 pm Dykhuis’ recent mixed media projects are executed on paper. The work, however, is constructed on commercial products that include messages on notepaper addressed to the artist, institutional vacation reports and collected business cards. As with the signature piece titled Mixed Messages which features the ominous silhouette of an F-18 Hornet fighter plane painted on a collaged field of banal notes left for Dykhuis by family members and co-workers, each of the pieces in this exhibition constructs a tension between the dominant ‘figure’ image and the social ‘ground’ of personal and commercial paper products that support it. This strategy alludes to the lurking dis-connect between our mundane, domestic, Canadian lives and our collective engagement in military conflicts in other parts of the world. Peter Dykhuis was born in London, Ontario. He graduated in 1978 with a BFA from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then moved to Toronto where he established an active studio practice while working for various galleries in the region. In 1991 he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was recently appointed Director/Curator of the Dalhousie Art Gallery after a decade in the position of Director of the Anna Leonowens Gallery at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Dykhuis has maintained an active studio practice throughout the decades and has exhibited in artist-run centres and public galleries throughout Canada, the United States and Japan. Recently, he has participated in international group shows in Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas, and Vienna, Austria, with new projects pending in Buffalo, New York, and Sydney, Australia. This is Dykhuis’ third solo project at Red Head Gallery. For full detail please visit www.dykhuis.ca or contact Redhead Director Peter Kingstone. Image: Peter Dykhuis, Mixed Messages (detail).