Western Exhibitions 6th show with Los Angeles-based artist Lilli Carré is a two-part exhibition: in Gallery 1 is Fallen Anvils, featuring ceramic sculpture and hand-painted acetate cels and in Gallery 2, the animated film Evacuations.

The exhibition is anchored around the animated short film Evacuations (2025). Painted formless figures haunt recent photos of emptied-out public spaces. As cel-animated smear frames, they perform various repetitive acts in these settings, with movements expressing a helpless, frantic energy felt in our current moment. The film is a string of varied evacuations – earth and organs are emptied, situations are fled. The figures become displaced from their locations, as their environments dissolve and their printed record evaporates.

Gallery 1 holds 20 individual cels chosen from the film out of over 1,000 hand-painted animation frames, certain frozen instants of transitional smear frame energy. Throughout the room sit ceramic mutations of classical anvil forms, inspired by the heavy, hammered cartoon object known for falling unexpectedly out of the sky. Hand-drawn lenticular elements are embedded into the anvils, adding unexpected life and motion into their weight. Evacuations was recently included in the Ottawa International Animation Festival, winning Best Sound Design.

From the jury: “Sound creates the physical experience in film, moving from its source directly to the body. Our selection employs sound playfully juxtaposed with image and movement to create a whole stronger than its individual parts.”

Fallen Anvils + Evacuations opened on Friday, November 7 and runs through December 20.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm.

The gallery will be accessible by appointment during the holiday break.