Artist David Hoffos makes the creepy sublime with his tiny houses of horrors

David Hoffos has a knack for finding the eerie in the everyday. The Lethbridge-based artist spent five years building his 20-piece installation Scenes From the House Dream. Turns out it’s more like a nightmare. Once in the black-painted, maze-like gallery, viewers can’t see their own feet. Video, played on television monitors, then reflected into glass-windowed dioramas using mirrors, helps create what feels a whole lot like the inside of Stephen King’s twisted mind. Lonely landscapes—from broken-down trains to abandoned bungalows—are backdrops for projections of tiny people trapped in worlds the size of architectural models. You’ll find yourself playing a peculiar game of Where’s Waldo as the shimmering folk move like ghosts through the dark. (Watch your back: a few are life-sized, and scattered throughout the gallery.) Just as you peer into the lives of others, you’ll feel as if you’re being watched.

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David Hoffos To Dec. 31, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art