Your Absence Is Mineral is a solo exhibition bringing together a body of work by artist Sarah Steeves at Vernon Public Art Gallery.
From Sept - Oct 2026 Curated by Victoria Verge
Steeves’s work rings with a subtle but persistent truth: humans are not separate from the Earth; we are intrinsically linked to it. The exhibition includes nine sculptures, a video work, and a durational installation. Steeves weaves intricate pieces of copper into textile-like forms, which are then immersed in a saline mixture and left to crystallize. These mineral interventions—specifically salt crystallization—reproduce processes of geological weathering that elicit transformation. By mirroring the ways natural forces break down rock, the work draws a parallel to how humans experience psychological weathering through accumulated grief and trauma.
At the heart of the exhibition is an exploration of grief, loss, and transformation. For Steeves, absence is not a void but a shifting into another form. The exhibition title takes inspiration from Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s novel Your Absence Is Darkness, a saga about an isolated rural community in Iceland. Steeves gently pushes back against the notion of absence as darkness, instead proposing something more materially grounded: mineral. Her title reflects a belief that we are so deeply interconnected with the Earth’s systems that nothing truly disappears, but instead transforms.
Titles also play an important role throughout Steeves’s practice. Using geological naming conventions often employed by researchers to catalogue discoveries, Steeves creates coded references to her own personal world and artistic influences. These subtle naming systems act as quiet gestures toward memory, place, and lineage.
Integral to the exhibition is an evolving installation in which viewers can observe the salt crystallization process unfold over the course of the exhibition. The sculptures become simultaneous representations of erosion and creation, inviting viewers to witness slow, almost imperceptible change over time.
Through this durational process, Your Absence Is Mineral offers a contemplative space to consider transformation, interconnectedness, and the cyclical nature of life. The work suggests that creation and erosion are not opposites, but part of the same continuous process of becoming.
Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts for making this exhibition possible.
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Your Absence Is Mineral brings together a series of copper-wire sculptures transformed through salt crystallization alongside a durational installation that carries the artist’s crystallization process from the studio into the gallery. Across two adjoining spaces, the exhibition moves between crystallization as a completed material state and crystallization as an unfolding process.
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham
Photo credit: Rachel Topham