Female artists speak to the complicated mix of emotions that is grief in an exhibit, workshops, performances, discussions, and poetry readings this weekend.

On Friday (August 8) from 7 p.m. to midnight and Saturday and Sunday (August 9 and 10) from 12 to 5 p.m., Visualelegies: Art, Act, Artifact takes on the denial of the mourning process in our society and looks at ways to express it through art at the ARC Gallery (1701 Powell Street).

At the art show, look for work by performer/poet Catherine Owen (above), whose “Skins (of grief)” photos by Karen Moe travel through the year after her spouse died suddenly of a heart attack at just 29. Elsewhere, artist Jennifer L. Safronick presents video vignettes of burying her twin brother’s game (moose, deer, trout) after his death from cancer, and artist Lynn Chaulk makes a mixed-media tribute to her late friend Heather. Moving work, sometimes cathartic and deeply personal, that will hit home for anyone who has lost someone.