Pam Baergen & Rick Rogers

Home, Home on the Brink is the outcome of an ongoing collaboration by Pam Baergen and Rick Rogers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The series began with a conversation about the scarcity of clear choices while navigating this new normal and deals with themes of adaptation, resilience and control. The artists considered how people react when out of their element and asked “what are we willing to change, or lose, to survive as a species?”. Each work was created collaboratively from concept sketches to the incorporation of collage, painting, photography and assemblage. Often playing with the spectrum between reality and surrealism, the works are diverse in terms of their media and execution, yet all of them manifest the common thread of surviving and thriving under threat.

Pam Baergen is an artist and independent curator/exhibit coordinator based in Edmonton. She studied Fine Art at MacEwan University and received her BA from the University of Alberta majoring in the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture. Pam’s artwork combines drawing and collage, often layering textures from discarded papers, books, cloth, nature and vintage craft mediums with photographic imagery. Her work explores how place, environment, family history and notions of eternity inform the perception of one’s self. Her work has been shown in several group and duo exhibitions throughout Alberta.

Rick Rogers is a professional creative based in St. Albert for the past 27 years. Rick’s varied experience includes experimental art, gallery management, exhibition curation, information technology design and project management. With a background in a wide range of media, he has gravitated towards experimental art with acrylic and mixed media. His work often focuses on the use of physical and visual textures and the development of interesting and unusual mark-making. He works in representational and non-representational subjects and enjoys developing a diversity of visual styles through multiple concurrent projects. Rick has won several awards and signature status in both the International Society of Experimental Artists and the International Society of Acrylic Painters.