Vivarium

Artist Statement:

The transition between experience and artifact is the focus of my research.

It is in the comfort of the everyday, the mundane act of living, that images, objects, and ideas are gathered. Much like my work, my ideas assemble as a collection of random fragments that have no demarcated boundaries. Discarded detritus of nature, man-made objects, found images, memories, colours, shapes and textures can inform my research.

This anthology becomes the integral part of the research as I construct it like a jigsaw puzzle; it becomes the artifacts or souvenirs of a past. The collection inherits a fluidity of materials as each of the items is transported into various media. These transformations alter their original state, from static components to a perpetual metamorphism. As this collection grows, the items are pulled further from their original source, re-writing a history, a journey without conclusion. The collection reflects narratives of a lost identity that parallel the fleeting moments that memory betrays.

An essential representational strategy inherent in the larger body of my work is for the elements of the prints and drawings to mirror the components of the sculptural assemblages. These works on paper exhibit similar patterns as the collection; the choices are eclectic. Often, the images are awkward predicaments that I set up in order to create a sense of uncertainty.

I do not want my work to rely on what I know, but rather, I wish to create dwellings of surprise.
It is the use of two and three dimensions that mimics the transitions between the tangible artifact, and memory of the experience. The work is the evidence of time, a moment that is past; it becomes the palimpsest of stories that have no fixed meaning. These two and three-dimensional works are the space between the real and the memory of the real. This continual transformation of imagery is balanced between fact and fiction. It is in this space of uncertainty that I position the viewer. The work becomes reminiscent of experience but the imagery itself is lucid; slipping out of what is known.

Artist’s Talk: May 27 at 6:00 pm. Reception to follow.