Richard Boulet: If I May Digress, Part 2
Curated by Lam Wong, Matilde Nuzzo & Wayne Baerwaldt
Duration: September 6 – October 25, 2025
Opening reception: September 6th, Saturday, 2-5pm
Venue: Canton-sardine, 071-268 Keefer st, Vancouver
Gallery hours: Weds-Sats 12-6pm
Richard Boulet: If I May Digress casts a spotlight on the extraordinary studio practice of Edmonton-based artist Richard Boulet. Boulet’s visually arresting fine craft textile works feature a characteristic mix of figurative and abstract elements with an emphasis on concrete poetry. Guest curated by Lam Wong, Matilde Nuzzo and Wayne Baerwaldt, this exhibition presents a dedicated survey of Boulet’s key works produced in various formats from traditional cross-stitching to assemblage techniques and filaments of colour embedded in quilting.
Works in the exhibition are also a testament to Boulet’s ability to acknowledge his lived experience with mental challenges. His experience has led him to pay close attention to building a base of knowledge that remains open to addressing a wide range of issues associated with social justice, well being, the omnipresence of poetic inspiration, and the need for psychic and physical space to accommodate an emerging queer identity. The characteristic markers of his investigation are complex and generally identified with autobiographical sources and the formal consequences of an evolving definition and making of art.
Our present moment of public acceptance and sharing of mental challenges and paths to wellness stories is unprecedented. Boulet’s timely exhibition and the accompanying fully illustrated publication offer new perspectives on intersectional mental illness/health aesthetics.
Boulet’s journey is one of ground-breaking acceptance in mainstream visual art amidst enormous mental health challenges and societal prejudice around mental illness. He introduces fine craft textile art as part of an inclusive wellness program for community building. In addition, he extends the discourse around fine craft materiality via his exploration of more diverse elements including medical terminology (as either oblique/direct references to his lived experience with mental challenges), design strategies and performative sound.
Richard Boulet: If I May Digress is a joint exhibition co-presented by Wil Aballe and Canton-sardine, co-curated by Lam Wong. Matilde Nuzzo and Wayne Baerwaldt. Matilde Nuzzo’s participation courtesy of Plug In Inc., Winnipeg, Griffin Art Projects, and Anonymous.
About the artist
Richard Boulet has two undergraduate degrees completed back-to-back from the University of Manitoba. The first is a Bachelor of Environmental Studies in Architecture followed by a BFA. Richard later received his MFA in Drawing and Intermedia at the University of Alberta and for a period of time he found a home for participatory programming, volunteering and gainful employment at the CMHA–Edmonton.
“Art to me is experimenting with how far my imagination can take me. I find that the process relaxes me and seeing my imagination come to life under my fingers amazes me. Creating is self-fulfilling. When I see something transformed to become a piece of art, I feel astonished that I made it. Art gives me the initiative to pass on my knowledge for future generations.” – Richard Boulet
Richard Boulet, Mom Am I A Vampire?, 2004, Fabric applique and cross-stitch, 74 x 106 inches
About the Curators
Lam Wong is a visual artist, designer and curator based in Vancouver BC. His curatorial interest is primarily rooted in regional West Coast art history, with an emphasis on the development of painting and its avant-garde narrative. He moved to Canada from Hong Kong during the 1980s. Lam studied design, art history and painting, both in Alberta and British Columbia. He is currently practicing painting as his main medium. Lam sees art making as an on-going spiritual practice. His main subjects are the perception of reality, the meaning of art, and the relationships between time, memory and space. Lam lives and works in Vancouver, Canada since 1998.
Matilde Nuzzo is a sinologist by training and visual arts curator by profession, graduating from Venice’s venerable Universita Ca’Foscari. Over the last five years she founded LensArt, an initiative to highlight neuro-diverse artists and inclusivity, and has curated and managed numerous exhibitions, workshops and cultural events to deliver significant viewer experiences. Project partners include Pistoletto Foundation, University of Verona, Fondazione Marchesani (Venice), ArtVerona 2023, l’Atelier Espressivo Ticino and Spazio Thetis (Venice), among others. Matilde is project manager for the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka and was a project coordinator and gallery manager for Art Museum at the University of Toronto’s presentation of Ydessa Hendeles: Grand Hotel, an official collateral event at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). Matilde also produces the monthly people column on ArtsLife.com featuring interviews with artists (including Canadians such as Leesa Streifler, Mats Nordstrom and Zachari Logan).
Wayne Baerwaldt is an independent visual arts curator and producer based in western Canada. His best-known curatorial projects trace performative elements in artmaking with an emphasis on unstable, disputed identities and the language of their construction and presentation in public and private spaces. Recent projects and publications include If I May Digress: Richard Boulet and Collaborators and Meeting for Teas: On the Road to Decolonization. He is the guest editor for Issue #62 of PUBLIC, The Gender-Diverse Lens, and conducts ongoing research in social justice issues and questions of representation as a Michele Sereda Artist in Residence for Socially Engaged Practice at the University of Regina. He is a board member of the Hnatyshyn Foundation, Ottawa and on the Advisory Committee of Participant, inc., New York City.
CANTON-SARDINE 