KIM VOSE JONES

Studio Watch Award!!

2011-07-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

StudioWatch – Kim Vose Jones: A Farewell To Flesh
October 1, 2011 - January 8, 2012

Each year, for the past seven years, the Gallery’s annual StudioWatch program has provided public exposure for a promising New Brunswick artist in the early stages of her or his career.

This year’s featured artist is Kim Vose Jones, who presents a multi-layered, sculptural installation comprised of salt, fiber, and glass. In this all-white environment of biomorphic forms, the artist evokes metamorphic transformations of the body, corporeal functions, and sexuality, while simultaneously suggesting an ethereal realm of spiritual transcendence.

She writes:

“My work explores the emotive possibilities of biotic forms and involves an intimate response to and experimentation with contrasting materials through which I examine liminal zones; places where boundaries are crossed and we stand on a threshold between states, steeped in the residuals of transformative experience.”

Curator: Terry Graff
Organized by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery

Identity: It Is What It Is (On Native Land)

2010-12-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

The National Gallery of Canada recently hosted a one-day symposium about Canadian art entitled Conversations about Contemporary Canadian Art.

Curators, museum directors, artists and publishers from Canada and abroad were invited to discuss different issues and trends through presentations, panels and debates which were broadcast live to a web audience.

This symposium was organized in conjunction with the exhibition Canadian Biennial: It Is What It Is: Recent Acquisitions of New Canadian Art, on view at the National Gallery of Canada. The exhibition’s stated aim was to “reveal the unique ways contemporary Canadian artists are tackling the larger social and political state of the world through their art and how they are choosing interdisciplinary modes of self-expression that transcend and explode traditional categories, materials, and genres” (National Gallery website). The exhibit showcases over 70 works created by more than 50 artists born and/or working in Canada.

The auditorium was packed as people interested in the arts in Canada gathered to discuss and think about what exactly is Canadian contemporary art?

Complicating the search for a “national identity” is the fact that the discourse that many contemporary Canadian artists are engaged in with their practice is critical of the very notion of a nationalism built upon colonization. This paper will discuss those works displayed during the biennial exhibit which openly discussed notions of national identity. One predominant connection, I argue, was themes of exploitation and displacement, memory and identity. I found the exhibition disappointing in its failure to acknowledge these themes, in particular, as they were expressed by First Nations artists. The challenges they present to concepts of identity and cultural “traditions” are among the most important developments in Canadian art today and so deserve further consideration.

Nationalism, as a framework for the arts, is a problematic concept especially in a country which is not quite sure about what its national identity is. What borders/framework do we place around national identity? Can we just look at an exhibit of work, a collection, and decide what is Canadian about the work (what is “native”)?

One panel was asked in advance to consider concepts of what is “Canadian” and by extension what is “Canadian art”. Did they notice certain contemporary trends in this art? In the introduction of the text A Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945, Amelia Jones asks the reader, “How can what is defined as in existence now- the contemporary- be written into (a) history? Is the notion of “contemporary art history” a contradiction in terms?” (Jones 3).

There is a vast amount of writing and discussion on the international politics of representation and visual cultural. Canadian artists are part of a world trend that is focused on “exploring the complex relationships among visual images and social or individual identities” (de Souza in Jones, 356).

American curator Denise Markonish, one of the panelists working on a survey of Contemporary Canadian art for MoCA Massachusetts, said she was trying to “discover what had been overlooked” by the international art world. Denise focused on what she considered distinct about Canadian art. She believes Canadian art has a strong focus on issues of identity and politics of sexual identity and multi-culturalism, and on distinctive cultures living side by side. This she pointed out was very different from the American view of a “cultural melting- pot”.

In Canada the notion of nationhood is complicated. Quebec and the multitude of Aboriginal Nations that cross the country have distinct societies within the political borders of the country. So to have nations and communities within a nation; cultural diversity and vast space between peoples makes for a difficult conception of a singular nationhood.

In his 1994 book The Location of Culture, post-colonialist theorist Homi Bhaba argued that we need to move away from binary terms when thinking about identity- there “was no clear opposition between sameness and separateness”- and that we needed to “established a more amorphous, non-dichotomous ideological space that to some extent neutralized the antagonism between the colonizer and the colonized” (Jones 361). This nuanced model of identity does not allow for clear categorization of cultural difference, race, or language.

Perhaps the most diverse dialogues within Canada can be found among First Nations artists. West coast Salish–Okanagan artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s large-scale paintings may be evocative of the Group of Seven, but he is also famous in Canada for paintings that address land claims, clear cuts, oil spills, systemic racism, and the injustices of the Indian Act. The result is a challenging pastiche of old and new.

Panelist Ryan Rice, from the very beginning of his talk, defined his work and the work of many well-known First Nations artists as being independent of and apart from Canadian identity. As art critic Bryne McLaughlin noted in Canadian Art magazine, “this point stands in striking contrast to widely accepted ideas of an all-inclusive, multicultural nationalism and offers important insight on the positioning of First Nations contemporary art” (McLaughlin, 1).

Edward Said argued that; “the transgressive insight borne of the experience of displacement enables a diasporic person to position him/herself critically in the world” (de Souza in Jones 363). Yet how does a “diasporic” idea apply to First Nations people in Canada, displaced on their own land?

Like Yuxweluptun, aboriginal artists such as Simon Hughes are breaking down what is considered “aboriginal art”. Hughes’ multi-panel work Northern Landscape is based on a quasi-traditional depiction of an Inuit village, yet with a large bio-dome and condos stacked in a style similar to Habitat 67 in Montreal. There was much debate at the time of Expo 67 regarding the building of these structures, part of which involved Native land rights issues.

In the middle of the community men slaughter a whale on the ice, as others cart away the blubber by snowmobile. This piece offers a stereotypical view of Canada while nodding toward the future-visions of our northern regions. He skillfully does this by juxtaposing the environmentally-controlled futuristic minimalist housing with an isolated traditional wooden house in the bottom right corner.

Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore’s Thin Red Line, on the other hand, is a more visceral and symbolic work that continues her exploration of the ways in which history, culture and politics are written on the body itself. As Foucault has pointed out “the body is the inscribed surface of events (traced by language and dissolved by ideas), the locus of a dissociated self (adopting the illusion of a substantial unity)… Its task is to expose a body totally imprinted by history and the process of history’s destruction of the body” (quoted by Ross in Jones, 390).

Belmore’s installation consists of a short wall of men’s suits which have been stuffed with sand; a line of red thread has been sewn down the back of each jacket. They are stacked like sandbags lining trenches at the front lines of a war, “stand-ins” for actual bodies. The “suits” allude to those who control the war, the thin red line- the blood, the dead Indians, and the work in general speaks of the responsibility that we all share and all ignore.

Non-European artists’ work is often classified as “primitive” and “the products of a stagnant or timeless culture” in comparison with the rapid cultural development of western modernism (de Souza in Jones 361). First Nations artists are expected to produce art reflecting their (timeless?) cultural heritage, yet one that has been romantically created for them by white society. These artists resist such expectations.

Some work performs its dislocation in a more subtle way. Tim Pitsiulak’s large pencil and pen drawing Untitled (Cockpit) for example, while utilizing traditional media, has been noted for its unusual perspective. We are looking through a window from the interior of a plane, which is approaching the high Arctic landing strip in Cape Dorset. The result borders on vertigo and offers the viewer an anxious rather than romantic vision of cultural heritage seen through a “technological” lense.

Art writer Steven Nelson has pointed out that diasporas are comprised by peoples who have been dislocated, newer migrants, refugees, exiles and travelers (Nelson in Jones 296). Nelson quotes James Clifford’s characterization of the qualities of diaspora as “histories of dispersal, myths/memories of the homeland, alienation in the host (bad host?) country, desire for eventual return, ongoing support of the homeland, and a collective identity importantly defined by this relationship” (Nelson in Jones 297). This not only “encompasses movements of people, it also includes their experiences. The activity of diasporic artists is not just about the otherness of diaspora, it is also about whiteness and the ways in which whiteness, in colonialist and racist terms, has been parasitic of other cultures both at home and away” (Nelson in Jones 313).

Identity is often connected to notions of homeland. In her 3-minute video “Rethinking Anthem” Anishinaabe multimedia artist Nadia Myre “re-contextualized” the famous line “our home and native land” from Canada’s national anthem. The irony of the original lyric is that it does not recognize modern Canada’s actual location on “Native” land, instead asserting a European occupation and identity onto that land. In the video Myre hand-stencils the text “Native Land” in black letters onto white paper, while above another set of (her) hands erase the word “Home”.  

The viewer is confronted with the idea that both Native land and identity have been erased. Myre’s work reminds us of the ever-presence of decolonization that lurks behind the Canadian official version of “home and native land.”

All of these works negotiate the problem of lenses such as “self” and “other” as a gage for understanding art, challenging what it means to use these concepts to create identity for the artists. These artists’ work also addresses broad global issues, as they simultaneously critique and represent the legacies of colonialism and capitalism.

Assumptions about nationalist identity in the arts ask us to develop “an idea of visual arts practice based on a coalitional political” line while presuming “an inherent or essential group identity” (de Souza in Jones 360). In her essay, de Souza asserts that identity is an “unstable” concept; because it is in constant discourse and flux, it is “not an essence, but a positioning” (de Souza in Jones, 361). There is always a politics of identity, a politics of positioning, especially within a country that claims to strive for multiculturalism.

Challenges to Canadian nationalism are not unique to First Nations artists. In Shary Boyle’s multimedia work The Clearances and Skirmish at Bloody Point she offers a retelling of colonization. Stories of cultural evictions that took place in Europe and North America alike glide across the walls covered in paper drawing of pioneers and Indians. Like much of the work connected to national identity in this exhibit, Boyle creates a work that explores themes of exploitation and displacement, memory and identity. Mark Crinson points out in his writing on post colonialist theory, that there is a “quasi- colonialist desire” to consume otherness and fantasies of racial “authenticity” common to the “colonialist imagination” (Crinson in Jones, 452)- and this is exactly what Boyle attempts to reveal.

De Souza points out that “identity stems from recognizing a group of experiences” (Jones, 371). Canadians of all sorts do share a group of experiences, yet these derive from very distinct perspectives and resonate in different ways for members of different communities. Boyle’s work shows us a Thanksgiving inspired meta-narrative of welcoming Natives feasting with beneficent Newcomers. It is a light show spectacular pointing out the folly of such simplifications and revealing what lies beneath the surface of this colonialist fantasy, while at the same time alluding to current injustices. She cleverly uses old school projection devices to paint the room with Disney-like colours. The work is timed so that we are dazzled by the lights, and then the projection cuts and we are left with child-like drawings taped to the walls: the narratives of our childhood, part of our education, staring back at us stripped of their glamour and so showing us a much darker past. This work is reminiscent of Lyotard’s critiques of grand recits of scientific progress, Christian brotherhood and the story of art history itself (Wilson in Jones 439).

Mark Crinson’s notion of collapsing theory in contemporary art offers direction when thinking about Canadian identity as viewed through art produced by the disenfranchised. This idea “is concerned with what has been distorted or excluded by imperialist conceptions of the world- including the representation of cultures or subjects outside the European traditions” and has a “current of engagement between the visual and the history and legacy of colonialism” (Crinson in Jones, 450).

At the heart of the Canadian Biennial exhibit, then, lies an interestingly conflicted set of challenges to the very notion of “Canadian”. These stem for the most part, though not exclusively, from the imaginations of Aboriginal artists. Yet the curators do not seem to have been willing to highlight or even to recognize that challenge. In her catalogue essay, Josée Drouin-Brisebois sums up the thinking behind the exhibition, noting evasively that “By choosing not to adopt one specific narrative, this exhibition unabashedly is what it is.” (Drouin-Brisebois, 1). This statement, while supporting the essay’s “larger exploration of diverse perspectives and new dialogues” (National Gallery website), does little to address or attempt to define Canadian art or offer interpretation of the diverse voices that are commenting on Canadian culture. In some ways this refusal to engage in the dialogue is a form of silencing. A national biennial exhibition should attempt in some way to unpack some of the themes- not just offer scope without critical curatorial direction.

Bibliography

1. Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said, Knopf, New York, NY, 1993.

2. A Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945, edited by Amelia Jones, Blackwell publishing, Malden, MA, 2006.

3. National Gallery of Canada, website, http://www.gallery.ca/itis/30.htm

4. Canadian Art Magazine, “It Is What It Is: The Canadian Biennial in Question,” by Bryne McLaughlin, Fall, 2010. http://www.canadianart.ca/online/features/2010/11/25/it_is_what_it_is/

5. It Is What It Is, catalogue, curatorial essay by Josée Drouin-Brisebois,

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, 2010.

6. Ottawa Citizen, “Review & video: It Is What It Is brings new contemporary Canadian art to the National Gallery, for better or worse” by Peter Simpson, Nov. 6^th, 2010 http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/bigbeat/archive/2010/11/06/review-it-is-what-it-is-brings-new-contemporary-canadian-art-to-the-national-gallery-for-better-or-worse.aspx

The 2010 recipient of the Charlotte Glencross Scholarship for Professional Development is worth her salt

2010-12-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

What Remains: Curated by Mireille Eagan

2010-06-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

What Remains

Manicured by choice or modified by circumstance, every body is a portrait of knowledge, histories and politics, both real and imagined. What Remains considers the interwoven issues of vision and space, gender and representation, politics and pleasure, while showing how contemporary artists have drawn on insights of diverse media. 

The internal and external are inextricably linked, with interior circumstance influencing what may be seen. The skin provides a boundary between these two worlds, acting as a sensitive surface capable of capturing and recording the fleeting moments of experience whether chosen, or as a result of unforeseen events. These changes broadcast who we believe ourselves to be, and influence others perceptions of ourselves. Jeff Wilson, a tattoo artist by trade, bases his style on a long tradition of “body art,” creating a large back tattoo for an imaginary individual. Conversely, on her 27th birthday, Lisa Steele made a record of her scars, accumulated over her lifetime. Birthday Suit is an autobiographical depiction of Steele's falls, stumbles, and surgeries, lovingly caressed as she describes each story associated with a particular mark. 

Juxtaposing her mother's back with an image of the cancer inside her, Genevieve Cadieux’s large photograph, Rubis, refers to the colour of the cancer cells, and ultimately to the abstract beauty of the microscopic image. Vessna Perunovich's sculptural works manipulate the everyday material of nylon into imaginative evocations of the physical body and the use it incurs. Sarah Saunders explores awareness of one's body as it refers to family history by constructing physical representations while incorporating actual family heirlooms. Kim Vose Jones’ studies in form employ contrasting soft and hard mediums to open up the human body and create an enlarged vision of the intricate web of shapes within, similar to those found at all levels within the natural world, from cellular to the topographical. Scott Saunders' projections record facial features in extreme close-up, emphasizing the alien nature and high abstraction of the visual.  Other artists consider the body as a site for politically charged conventions and stereotypes that delineate entire groups of people. In the video LANDSCAPE, Terrance Houle subverts what he describes as the “Hollywood Indian” in all its colonial, cartoonish, cosmetic traditions. Joyce Wieland’s lithographic work of the early seventies, entitled Oh Canada, transposes musical sound to serial imagery through a series of lip imprints that mark out the syllables to Canada’s national anthem, and discusses competing ideologies of nationalism and feminism. Sarah Maloney's series of embroideries, based on the life-sized proportions of a five-foot woman, challenge the conventions of medical illustration by moving beyond traditional representations of the female body as an objectified figure and looking below the surface.   The body also imposes elements of constraint, physical limitations that bring with them unique challenges and perspectives. In a wheelchair for most of his life, Rick Burns stated: "I always get asked if being in a wheelchair affects my artwork. Of course it has to affect it … I can’t pretend that I don’t exist in this particular form. But I think the issues are much larger …. Essentially, I’m concerned about the body as subject matter …primarily, the absence of the body.” Irene F. Whittome, herself full-sighted, is drawn to realities that exist for what she considers initiates, as found with Braille transcriptions.   As with art, so with the body—it is through abstraction that one describes one's experience to others, in an attempt to transcend one's particular limitations of the corporeal. We work with what we have, we may choose to change what is given. The ongoing journey of self-evidencing, the results of a continuous process of becoming, these are what we carry with us. 

List of artists: Joyce Wieland, Rick Burns, Terrance Houle, Genevieve Cadieux, Sarah Maloney, Jeff Wilson, Sarah Saunders, Kim Vose Jones, Irene F. Whittome, Vessna Perunovich, Lisa Steele, Scott Saunders.

"What Remains" at the Confederation Centre Gallery PEI

2010-05-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

This work investigates change and activity, frozen into slices of matter.

Magnified neurons reach out toward each other and the viewer-- recreating biological phenomena, the transference of information, and communications of desire.

It is currently on display at the Confederation Centre ofr the Arts

Folds and Furrows

2010-04-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am for an art ... by Claes Oldenburg

2009-06-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.

I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.

I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.

I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.

I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.

I am for an art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.

I am for an art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.

I am for the art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.

I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.

I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.

I am for art that is smoked, like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.

I am for art that flaps like a flag or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief.

I am for art that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, like socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit.

I am for art covered with bandages, I am for art that limps and rolls and runs and jumps. I am for art comes in a can or washes up on the shore.

I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that sheds hair.

I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on.

I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist.

I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches.

I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind mans metal stick.

I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.

I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetys arm, or kiss, like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks, like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on, like an old tablecloth.

I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with.

I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is.

I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a government check. I am for the art of last wars raincoat.

I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer-holes in winter. I am for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worms art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs.

snow snow snow

2009-04-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

The snow is melting uncovering all sorts of beauties.
What a gift this life is, how beautiful...

Socca, Green Olives and thou....

2008-08-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Socca is simple street food at its best. A warm chickpea crepe, made on an outdoor griddle, it is fragrant, slightly sweet and savoury. It always reminds me of my evenings wandering the markets of Vieux Nice. Here is my favourite recipe, made in an oven, but can be recreated using a chapatti pan if you own one.
Best served on a warm summer evening with a bowl of cracked olives and a glass of peppery wine.

Socca

1 1/4 cups (150g) chickpea flour
1 level teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (375ml) water
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, for the pan
1/2 level tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper

Sift the chickpea flour with the salt into a bowl. Make a well in the center. Whisk in the water, gradually to form a thin smooth batter. Let it rest for 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F /220 degrees C. Spoon the oil into a 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inch (24 x 31 cm) roasting pan and heat in the oven for 3-4 minutes.
stir the chickpea batter once more and then pour into the hot pan, scatter with rosemary and return to the oven.

Bake 10-15 minutes, until the mixture is set and brown around the edges. Take it out of the oven and season with black pepper.

Let it stand for 5 minutes then tear it up and each it with your fingers. It should serve you and three of your friends...

The Tortoise and The Hare

2008-08-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

One early evening after a terrible storm a silky furred hare ventured
out of his subterranean home. He had been in his hole for many hours
and needed to stretch his anxious legs. Rounding a sage bush he
discovered his friend the tortoise lying on his back with a branch
cracked over his belly.

"My dear friend, let me help you... then we can race! You beat me before but I am better now, more wise," he said to the tortoise, quivering in anticipation.

He flipped the tortoise over and pulled back in alarm, taking in the
tortoise's crushed shell. He twitched, he ticked and he trembled.
His friend was not all the way out of his shell; only the tip of his
beaky nose and his clawed feet protruded.

"Come out, come out of your shell, my friend,” he said, “and we will
race!” The chill of the night swept around them, bringing cold tears to
the hare's eyes.

"I cannot," said the tortoise's muffled voice, "for my shell is
cracked, and a shard is pointing at my heart. If I move it will
pierce me, I will die."

"But you must come out and race me. You will die if you don't come
out. Come out," said the hare, "you don't need that shell, you can be
free...! Come and run with me over that hill. See! There is a little
stream, a brook, a lake, some seaweed and snails... come, come, let us
race."

The hare stared deeply into the tortoise’s eyes. "Don't you see it?" he asked.

The tortoise looked over his old adversary's shoulder. He let out his
breath and felt a stab of pain.

"I do, I do see it. I will race you! I will win again, I will be free!"

The hare inhaled the early evening frost and started to run slowly,
"Come, my friend, you must run fast to catch me...!" His tears were frozen on his long lovely hare lashes.

"Come... come..." he breathed.

"I am coming!" said the tortoise, as he stretched his neck out and
pushed his legs free. His heart beat faster as his shell broke his
heart.

"I am coming! I am free, I am coming, I am free..."

And he ran after the hare, with greater speed then he ever demonstrated before.

Things Inside/ Body Atlas

2008-08-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

Things Inside/Body Atlas juxtaposes the personal expressive articulation of disease within the body with multimedia representations of anatomical structures.

My mother had lymphoma cancer when I was a child, until my early teens. An experimental drug given to her in her early forties sent the cancer into remission but caused early Alzheimer’s disease. She ended up dying of liver and kidney failure several years later, her body permeated with cancer once again. My aunt died of lung cancer (a victim of second hand smoke). A friend fought breast cancer, loosing her breast but saving her life; she emerged a changed person.

In some ways these pieces are biographical, based on the stories of women in my life and in my readings. My mother described her cancer to me as rotting grapes inside her body. My aunt coughed like steal wool was caught in her throat. Another woman imagined cancerous mold slowly spreading across bread. I have carried these stories and imaginings with me for a long time. As a collector of medical textbooks, I was intrigued by the absence of personal experience and expression in the drawings. Through art I wish to address this absence.

Although personal in nature, I wanted the individual pieces to reach beyond my personal experience. Speaking to the lived experience of other people who have had illness touch their lives, I want to provoke a community of sharing and awareness.

The idea that we are always trying to make sense of our ailments in non-medical terms has brought about a language we all understand. Simple concepts such as heartburn, a lump in the throat, a rock in the stomach, make more sense to us than technical terms. This is a vital tool of communication. People want to know how things feel and we give images to ailments to help explain our pain.

I chose to work in glass as my primary media for this project, because of its dual nature of strength and vulnerability- similar to a person confronting illness. I also like the spiritual history of stained glass. It suggests places of personal contemplation, a sanctuary. Each piece in the series is designed to evoke illness, narrative experience, strength and courage.

Medulsoids, a study in form

2008-08-07T06:17:00.000-07:00

This project was inspired by my reading of the books, The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. And by a shower cap pilfered from a hotel room in Albany, New York.
The jellyfish—a brainless creature—exists because of a sophisticated nervous system. Evolutionary theory suggests humans evolved from sea origins. Our brains and nervous system recall such origins in form, yet not in function.
This piece consists of four elements. The first is a brainless jellyfish-form fashioned from sea urchin’s body, metallic thread, plastic bottle, shower cap and a curtain of fishing line tentacles with glass beads.
The second is a needle-felted squid in a hand-blown display vessel. The third is a needle-felted human brain, with indicators for Alzheimer’s mapped in yellow. The evolution is completed by a fantastical creature morphing both human and sea creature natures, fashioned from an old beaded handbag and muslin.

ShapeShifters....

2008-08-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

Shapeshifters are an ongoing series of needle- felted dolls. Through this medium, I attempt to explore the female form as inspired by mythological, religious and folkloric texts. I am particularly interested in creation myths, stories of birth and death. My creations are not necessarily how the texts present the creatures but are a critical conversation with the cultural context of the story. These creatures are not only created from my imagination, but have their roots in the stories of my childhood. I choose to playfully examine and reinterpret mythical creatures whose hybrid nature delves into issues regarding feminine nature and mystique.

I place my creations out of doors in natural settings, as if returned to a place of origin. I am interested in the relationship between the work and the space it occupies.

I wish to explore the practice of retelling, creating and reclaiming myth and lore. When I am done I hope my work contributes to the popular culture of girls through the enticing example of powerful female characters.