Untitled
Artifact
2024.007.009
2014
Artist Statement
The first images in this series of drawings were begun in 1995 for an
exhibition of large light-box drawings entitled, "falling from afar,"
curated by Helen Marzolf and installed on the exterior facade of the
Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina. I was interested at that time in the
"emptying" face - the face that lets go, eyelids closed and mouth
fallen open, asleep, or perhaps otherwise vacated. The cameo shaped
light-boxes depicted bright cartoon-like heads drawn in heavy black
outline on a white ground and resembled amusement park signs
where the thrill offered is a boisterous mix of terror and elation.
However, the faces on these heads, disengaged and emptied of their
expression, were instead encountering what I referred to as medical
intervention that has missed its mark. In the rather dizzying decade
that predated this work, the beginnings of HIV's chronology in North
America, I had become disillusioned with medicine and its ability to
save us. Poked and prodded by technology, the heads in "falling from
afar" are unable to wholely meet the attempts to investigate, take
apart, repair or reconstruct the body. Despite this, the characters in
these drawings convey a singular sense of self, of individuality, that
cannot [refuses to] be dismantled or rebuilt, even when parts are
removed, covered or interrupted. They are outsiders, characters of
both the past and the future, distinct in their ambiguous dress and
their hybrid physical human/animal compositions. They are incubators
in repose, perhaps not even of this earth. It was not until many years
later, when I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, that sleep
itself, elusive and strangely more like death than anything, became a
new unwelcome fixation within these works.
I have returned to this series of ink drawings again and again over the
years, adding to what has become a fairly large collection that may be
called upon and reproduced in a variety of ways - as prints,
light-boxes, embroideries, embossings ... The embossings in "Sleepy
People" revisit this collection. They are blind, since they use no ink and
appear only through the impression of the image pushed into the
porous white paper. They are quiet, intimate in scale, and when
handled the details of the image appear and disappear according to
how light rakes across their surfaces. Like the effect of embossing
itself, there is an internal pressure and presence in these heads that is
belied by their outward stillness. [May 30, 2015]
The first images in this series of drawings were begun in 1995 for an
exhibition of large light-box drawings entitled, "falling from afar,"
curated by Helen Marzolf and installed on the exterior facade of the
Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina. I was interested at that time in the
"emptying" face - the face that lets go, eyelids closed and mouth
fallen open, asleep, or perhaps otherwise vacated. The cameo shaped
light-boxes depicted bright cartoon-like heads drawn in heavy black
outline on a white ground and resembled amusement park signs
where the thrill offered is a boisterous mix of terror and elation.
However, the faces on these heads, disengaged and emptied of their
expression, were instead encountering what I referred to as medical
intervention that has missed its mark. In the rather dizzying decade
that predated this work, the beginnings of HIV's chronology in North
America, I had become disillusioned with medicine and its ability to
save us. Poked and prodded by technology, the heads in "falling from
afar" are unable to wholely meet the attempts to investigate, take
apart, repair or reconstruct the body. Despite this, the characters in
these drawings convey a singular sense of self, of individuality, that
cannot [refuses to] be dismantled or rebuilt, even when parts are
removed, covered or interrupted. They are outsiders, characters of
both the past and the future, distinct in their ambiguous dress and
their hybrid physical human/animal compositions. They are incubators
in repose, perhaps not even of this earth. It was not until many years
later, when I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, that sleep
itself, elusive and strangely more like death than anything, became a
new unwelcome fixation within these works.
I have returned to this series of ink drawings again and again over the
years, adding to what has become a fairly large collection that may be
called upon and reproduced in a variety of ways - as prints,
light-boxes, embroideries, embossings ... The embossings in "Sleepy
People" revisit this collection. They are blind, since they use no ink and
appear only through the impression of the image pushed into the
porous white paper. They are quiet, intimate in scale, and when
handled the details of the image appear and disappear according to
how light rakes across their surfaces. Like the effect of embossing
itself, there is an internal pressure and presence in these heads that is
belied by their outward stillness. [May 30, 2015]
embossed paper
Width: 16 cm;
Height: 22.7 cm;
Notes: same as support
Notes: same as support
PRINT
Gift of the artist, 2024.