Feeding the Bite

VISA 4F06 Honours Exhibition

Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts

Brock University

All photos by Jimmy Limit unless otherwise noted. Photo credit: Charles Kim Cover image: Taylor Elliott. She Is So Beautiful, I Think About Her Every Day, (detail), 2023.

Acknowledgements

As a course that relies on prolonged experimentation and constant questioning, the VISA 4F06 curriculum is best supported through many voices, experts who provide the students with new perspectives, resonant questions, and renewed observations as the work is progressing. We are indebted for the faculty and guests who participated in the growth of the students’ research and practice over the past academic year. Amy Friend, Chair of Visual Arts, has been particularly stellar in championing the department, this class, and all the Marilyn I. Walker School students, offering her good humour, insight, and unwavering common sense.

We are immensely grateful to Tairone Bastien, who, despite being involved in many professional projects around the globe, kindly agreed to be our visiting curator for the course. He met the group at three points over the year, offering his keen judgement, provoking fresh trajectories, pointing to valuable artistic and critical resources, all with his usual graciousness and generosity.

Students in the course also benefitted greatly from many professional artists who engaged them through studio visits. St. Catharines’ artists Maggie Groat and Jimmy Limit offered thoughtful questions and salient perceptions at the exact right time late in fall term, with astute feedback at a critical point in the students’ research pathways. Mary Mattingly, a Walker Cultural Leader invited to the Marilyn I. Walker School from New York City, provided honed observations and welcomed critical dimensions to the works in progress. Toronto-based artists Janice Gurney and Andy Patton, in their position as Walker Cultural Leaders, gave invaluable comments, heartfelt guidance, and good humour just as students were nearing the completion of their projects.

Associate Professors Amy Friend, Derek Knight, Donna Szoke and Amanda Burk stepped up to provide formal critiques at midterm and term-end, proposing expanded ways for students to think about their research and practice, while equally provoking them to dive more deeply. Our thanks for their astute and prolific observations, as well as to all of the faculty members in the Department of Visual Arts who have provided mentorship, guidance, critical feedback, and opportunities for these nine students throughout their studies. We also acknowledge the great care provided by Sonya DeLazzer, Maximiliano Holten-Andersen, Arnie McBay, and Rhona Thomas, who supported students in untold ways to facilitate their studio production and exhibition. Steve Remus and Natasha Pedros, our wonderful community partners from Niagara Artist Centre, and Matt Caldwell, the patient preparator for both MIW and NAC, have also made Feeding the Bite possible.

Many thanks to Brock’s Centre for Pedagogical Innovation for providing an Experiential Learning Innovations grant to support Tairone’s involvement, and to Dr. Carol Merriam and the Faculty of Humanities Dean’s Discretionary fund which enabled his written contribution. The Dean’s Discretionary fund also generously supported visiting artists and lectures that were a richly beneficial component for all of us. As always, we acknowledge the deeply meaningful and continued gift of the Walker family, specifically the Walker Cultural Leader funding.

Included in our gratitude are the many parents, partners, peers, friends and family members who understand the benefits of an education in arts, and who proudly cheered from the sidelines.

Linda Carreiro Professor, Visual Arts

Leaning in

By Linda Carreiro

The VISA 4F06 class is an intensive course, moving a group of emerging artists towards professional practice by grounding their work in research-creation methodologies. The class is structured as a lab, an atelier and critical platform, where students make, think, make more and think more, guided by the instructor, faculty and guests throughout the year. During the fall semester, early ideas were supported through ample feedback and questioning, with necessary reflection and resolve. The winter term was focused on defining, producing and refining, with students moving at times with certainty, and other times less surely, towards a body of work that reflected their efforts and engagement. I enjoyed the many honest conversations both in and outside of class about the challenges and insecurities of being an artist, especially putting work into the public eye where art’s value is often questioned beyond the commercial.

Feeding the Bite is the result of students chomping into their studio work—pun intended—to engage with the numerous trajectories presented for their ideas. The deeper the bite, the more satisfying the rewards. More specifically, and in reference to the title of the show, it is a term used in situations particularly related to mental health. To ‘feed the bite’ is to counter the instinct to pull away when bitten by another individual or a wild animal, lest more flesh be damaged; it contends one should instead lean into the mouth of the aggressor until they let go. This approach requires patience, contemplation and faith that such a confrontation will be rewarding, even though painful. In a multitude of ways, and through a range of

media, these nine artists admirably tackle the bite fullon rather than pulling away from danger: some jesting and jabbing at their fears; others shifting sideways to avoid further injury; others confronting the source with a more acerbic edge, acknowledging the deep wounds.

We are slowly emerging from an intensive period where shocks and losses from the pandemic have been further blistered by profound ecological, social and economic disruptions on a global scale. The resulting despair, disparity, polarization, new and on-going conflicts—all against a backdrop of searing greed—has certainly made a mark. Many of us are feeling tender from the withdrawal and isolation, where fear and uncertainty compounded any residual hurts. Yet, collectively, this group of artists from different lived experiences, perspectives and practices have instead leaned into their pain to explore anxieties and traumas, to witness and to produce work that both reveals and conceals the impacts of acute experiences. From exposing the effects of abuse or neglect to questioning societal expectations, confronting fears or characterising the fleetingness of a life, the conversations are thoughtfully presented in Marilyn I. Walker Gallery and Niagara Artists Centre. Even when the artworks explore care and protection, a sliver of exposed ‘skin’ leaves a vulnerable space to feel the bite again. Through the works by Elizabeth Peters, Emily Au, Emily MacDonald, Jasmine Monk, Marcel Grimard, Natalie Tawadroos, Olivia Dubé, Scarlett Rivet and Taylor Elliott, we are provided reassurance that leaning into vulnerability can be a way of healing.

Acknowledgements

As a course that relies on prolonged experimentation and constant questioning, the VISA 4F06 curriculum is best supported through many voices, experts who provide the

and

students with new perspectives, resonant questions,

Photo credit: Charles Kim By Tairone Bastien Curator

Feeding the Bite is a group exhibition featuring works by Elizabeth Peters, Emily Au, Emily MacDonald, Jasmine Monk, Marcel Grimard, Natalie Tawadroos, Olivia Dubé, Scarlett Rivet, and Taylor Elliott, all of whom are fourthyear honors students in the VISA 4F06 course, a critical studies and studio class led by Dr. Linda Carreiro. I had the pleasure of getting to know these nine artists and their work over the course of the year, doing studio-visits on three separate occasions. With each visit, I gained insight into their practices, interests and ambitions, as well as the inevitable challenges and roadblocks they faced along the way.

For their final project, each artist honed a powerfully distinctive body of work that, although singular in form, material, and narrative content, shares with the rest an underlying concern with the contemporary moment. For this cohort of students, the last three years have been exceptionally calamitous, a period characterized by the existential crisis of climate change; the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdown and retreat from public life; deepening social and political divisions; and the dissolution of commonly held truths or a shared reality as people retreat into mediated echo-chambers reinforced by closed-loop tautologies of unreason.

And it is, in part, because of the heightened sensitivity and anxieties caused by such cataclysmic events that these students have approached their artistic practices as an outlet to work through the upheaval. In their work, some of the artists face discomfort with certain relations; whilst others examine individual and collective pain; and still others address deeply personal—at times, difficult—experiences and memories. In our discussions,

many of the students described the issues surrounding their work as “traumatic,” which is a compelling word choice. The term “trauma” is etymologically linked to the Greek word for “wound,” and has been used to describe both physical and psychological injury. But it is also a loose signifier that can be both hyperbolic and banal. Although “trauma” has specific meaning in psychology, and particularly in psychoanalysis, to describe exposure to an incident or event that is emotionally disturbing or life-threatening, its use is now more widespread. Today, “trauma” is used by many people to describe an ever-expanding array of psychic and emotionally painful phenomena, which makes it difficult to pin down, whilst also creating more room and opportunities to discuss it. Indeed, one could argue that some positive outcomes of our crisesprone era, is the increased access to information about trauma and how to heal from it, and the ability to find others who share similar experiences and more readily establish networks of care. There is also growing comfortability among more people with talking openly and honestly about mental health.

The students chose the exhibition’s title, Feeding the Bite, to reference their shared interest in facing difficult—and, for some, painful—aspects of their lives through their art. The phrase, “feed the bite” refers to a self-defence technique used against a biting attacker. One’s instinct would be to immediately pull away, which may cause the assailant to bite harder and risk tearing flesh as you retreat. Instead, the tactic is to pull the person towards you and lean into their bite, which would force their jaw open so you can pull yourself free. The phrase strikes a chord with the exhibiting artists because it speaks to the need for higher-order thinking in times of crisis. And indeed, their time in this class, with its affordance of studio-time, guided critique and focused study, enabled them to take a step-back from the painful and emotionally profound experiences in their lives and channel it into the work. Rather than getting lost in the moment which would risk worsening the wound and causing more lasting damage, they chose to reflect critically and bravely. Through their title choice, the artists are signalling their desire to resist and examine impulsive behaviors, confront dark and troubling issues head-on, and explore the wounds, tenderness

and heartaches of being human. The exhibition is spread across two galleries. The first is the Visual Arts Gallery and Exhibition Space inside the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts building. Here, visitors encounter works by Elizabeth Peters, whose paintings consist of drips, splashes, swirls, scrapes and pours of paint in a riot of warm and cool colors. Rather than hung on a wall, the works are installed edge-to-edge in a grouping on the floor. Viewers can take-in the paintings from any angle, forming a somatic relationship with them as they walk around. For Peters, each canvas is a representation of the chaos in her mind. In her artist statement—printed in this catalogue— she writes openly and honestly about her neurodivergence, and her desire for this work to be a catalyst for generating conversations about mental health. Upon closer inspection, one notices that each painting is bisected by a hard-edged line of varying widths in a solid, flat color of white, orange, or green. The lines slice through the roiling multi-color clouds, providing a stable counterpoint, a clear direction to guide one through the storm.

Nearby, Jasmine Monk presents a sexually charged series of paintings that depict parts of the female anatomy. Images of breasts, labia, armpits and pubic hair are captured in highly saturated blue ink that seeps into crisp white paper. In addition to a series of drawings there are small, accordion-style journals also on display, referencing the artist’s interest in writing. In the journals—which the artist calls “pillow-books”—Monk’s forms are elegantly spaced, leaving large expanses of white in-between, creating a feeling of syntax and rhythm. The unseen is as important, if not more so than the seen. Body parts float amidst a blank void; the absences and occlusions convey a sense of unknowability—of others and of ourselves. Monk explains in her artist statement—printed in this catalogue— that her model is her partner, and she views this series as an examination of female queer desire. Alongside the drawings, the artist presents a redacted letter she wrote to her lover, conveying an intimate relation that refuses to be seen or known. The right to opacity is especially poignant for queer desire. It’s a resistance to be recognized, known,

or defined by others’ opinions and assumptions. Also in the Visual Arts Gallery are surrealist paintings by Olivia Dubé. The largest work depicts a young female figure draped across a bed, her head lying back, and her face obfuscated behind pixels. The artist’s statement—printed in this catalogue—describes the painting as a self-portrait, which, given the obscured female figure at the heart of it, suggests a discomforting sense of alienation. A heartshaped tattoo on the figure’s arm has the word “Mom” written within, pointing to a relationship with a parent who is otherwise not present. The only other figure in the painting is a large crawling panther, a popular WWIIera tattoo that was often applied, because of its dense blackness, to cover-up older and unwanted ones. Some things here are hidden. The alternating painterly style of the panther and woman create a narrative and aesthetic tension that suggests this might be a dream centered on a symbolic conflict between predator and prey. The disturbing dreaminess extends to Dubé’s other, smaller paintings where female figures wearing platform heels and wings— their faces hidden beneath long hair—are surrounded by dozens of tiny floating eyeballs. This is a recurring theme in the artist’s earlier work, and the representation of an unwanted gaze.

The exhibition’s other site is Niagara Arts Centre in downtown Saint Catharines. Upon entering the gallery, visitors encounter a work by Natalie Tawadroos, a floorbased sculptural installation that consists of more than a dozen small human figures, constructed out of wire and insulation foam, and dressed in similar miniature grey hoodie and dark slacks. The title of the work is “A Journey Within” and the uniformed dolls—which the artist describes as self-portraits—have no faces, only 3-D printed hands. Strings are attached to the figures’ hands and feet like marionettes, but they are not bound to an external control. Instead, they are inter-connected with each other, positioned in dynamic poses moving in multiple directions, pulling the strings taught like a game of cats-cradle. It’s as if the multiple selves of the artist are vying for control, a reference the artist discusses in her artist statement—

printed in this catalogue. Through this work, Tawadroos admits to addressing an internal power-struggle, the conflict for control within herself. She demonstrates a willingness, shared by others in this class, to reflect on her inner conflicts, here turning towards subterranean tensions.

Emily MacDonald’s photographs are presented unframed and mounted in a loose and floating arrangement. The idiosyncratic hang emphasizes the odd and unconventional subjects of her photos: a traffic cone discarded and half-hidden in tall grass; a dried-out sweet potato snapped in two and positioned carefully on a ledge. MacDonald’s keen eye is attuned to seemingly forgotten objects passed every day without notice. By directing attention to such things, the artist compels a closer read, a desire to know their purpose and story and by extension the time, place, people and events they evidence. Alongside this series, the artist also presents an artist book filled with photographs of things in motion: a flock of birds, raindrops in a puddle of water, and a plane ascending into the clouds. MacDonald has left the prints unfixed which leaves them susceptible to light; they will gradually develop and change color over the course of the exhibition. The viewer is invited to flip through the book’s pages, troubled, perhaps, by the realization that their interest will contribute to the images’ eventual passing from visibility to invisibility, from presence to absence, and from memory to loss.

Marcel Grimard’s installation consist of six glass panels on which the artist applied brightly colored ink and glue to create translucent abstract images, ranging from depictions of body parts strewn across a battlefield, to a row of smokestacks emitting toxic yellow clouds into the sky. Light shining through the glass panels casts pools of colored light on the floor, recreating the optical sensation of being in a church. The reference to organized religion is important for Grimard, who seeks to confront, in part, the terrifying history of Catholic indoctrination and genocide finding correlation with our current neoliberal reality and

capitalist regimes of power and control. Layered into this experience, is an unsettling discordant recording of “It’s the Dawn of a New Era,” a hit song from 1970 looped and mixed with sounds of bombs and people screaming, unsettling the unrealized idealism he grew up with. Installed nearby is another important body of work by Grimard, a series of brightly colored, absurdist drawings of his partner. The six portraits reveal the artist’s biting wit that can, perhaps, serve as a salve, however temporary, to the trauma of history and our mounting existential crises.

Emily Au presents a series of ceramic objects that appear to be a variety of vessels made from strips and pieces of animal meat. One work looks like thin slices of raw beef contorted into the shape of a flower. Another vessel seems to be made from large bacon strips turned-in upon themselves and stacked to form a column. Whilst another object looks like a container made from dull-colored pieces of chicken skin. The fleshiness of these works is uncanny, familiar yet strange, as it has an unsettling proximity to human tissue. According to Au’s artist statements, her work examines the abject, which lies in the depiction of raw meat using ceramics, the seeming transmutation of mortal flesh into an ostensibly immortal material. Au uses ceramics—a highly intuitive, responsive, and organic process—to create beautifully eternal objects that represent an unsettling reality, not dissimilar to the processing of living animals into packaged goods that are marketed and sold to consumers in stores.

Scarlett Rivet presents a series of fantastical self-portraits in which a female face is obscured by images of birds, flowers, fungus, and other quasi-organic forms. With each painting, the paraphernalia becomes increasingly thick and ornate, overtaking the features of the person’s face as the image shifts from darkly angelic to more monstrous than human. As the artist explains in her artist statement—printed in this catalogue—she sets out to reflect upon her traumatic relationship with her mother. Next to the paintings is a poem written by Scarlett’s mother in which she calls her daughter ‘angel eyes’, a term of endearment. A tense relationship is formed between her mother’s words and her image of

herself, leading one to question what caused the distance between the love letter and a painful self-image, one that is increasingly obscured. Another key feature of these works is the pale, monstrous skin tones—green, grey, blue—that recalls sick and dying flesh. The artist demonstrates the act of feeding the bite by examining the source of her pain: her mother-herself.

Taylor Elliott presents two works. One is a large painting on unstretched canvas, at the centre of which is a halfnaked male figure that appears to be in pain and bleeding from a wound—possibly a bite—in his belly. Floating to his left is a representation of the Venus de Milo, a famous broken sculpture of an idealized woman missing both her arms. Red thread is stitched into the cavities on either side of her torso to look like blood. Red thread is applied elsewhere like stitches on fresh wounds or scar tissue, and in other areas it’s applied in orderly patterns to depict raindrops from roughly drawn clouds. Nearby, the artist also presents a sculptural work that appears to be an adolescent bed, with a canvas laid across like a bedspread over the wooden frame. The canvas’ surface is painted

similarly to the wall hanging, shifting from deep blues on one side to red on the other. In the centre is a roughly sketched bouquet of disembodied arms, with hands in motion and unfurling, as if swaying in a silent breeze. According to Elliott, these works bear witness to cycles of abuse enacted against people close to him. In particular, he grapples with the anxieties and frustrations of adolescent males isolated by technology and disconnected from the world. Elliott’s works contend with the trauma of unreciprocated desire; an adolescent’s bed is the site where such alienation begins, and the painted tapestry is a representation of that journey.

The artists in Feeding the Bite examine intense emotional events, encounters, and relationships through diverse material practices. From my first visit with this class of students, I’ve been enamoured by their candor and their willingness to discuss and work through their traumas, pushing through the layers of their own psychology to confront fears, phobias, demons and anxieties. Not to run, but to face them, using art to soothe and make sense of the pain.

Photo credit: Linda Carreiro

“Why can’t you just be...” Acrylic on canvas, size variable, 2023

ELIZABETH PETERS

“WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BE …”

The 21st century has ushered in a wave of change that has shaped the world we call home. Through many forums, information has become more accessible; conversations can be global in nature and spawn social awareness and change regrading issues like mental health. A positive outcome from global conversations is that issues once shameful or taboo have begun to change dramatically and are now becoming part of open mainstream discussions. “Why can’t you just be …” exhibits my journey with mental health.

Moving conversations about mental health forward in an open and positive manner is a passion of mine. Growing up, mental health was not openly discussed outside our home, and never part of public conversations. Thanks to those leading the charge of change, such as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s (CAMH), whose mission is ensuring mental illness is seen “in the same light as every other illness” (Leading n.d., par 2). Few are reticent to discuss their broken arm, so why shouldn’t mental health also be discussed openly? I am proud to say that today, talking about mental health and discussing my joys and challenges with being neurodivergent is something I no longer feel I must hide.

I feel it imperative to use my voice – my art – to be a catalyst for furthering open communication about mental health. I am inspired by artists such as Tracey Emin, whose installation My Bed (1999) created controversy, rawly presenting her mental health challenges in her art. As I worked on my capstone project, I explored how to depict the internal chaos I feel in my life; a feeling like an internal tug-of-war, the pushand-pull of being both in control and out of control. I decided to share my feeling of chaos as a collection of paintings using a mix of intentional mark making, fluid painting pours, sharp edges and clashing pools of colours. Each piece reflects my own mental landscape as I live day-to-day with ADHD and dyslexia, while also struggling to maintain positive mental health.

The works feature an overwhelming chaotic amalgamation of purposeful marks and fluid lines intended to depict an internal storm that competes with a perceived external control. Each piece is similar, yet also unique in both design and scale. The pieces share one common factor: a cut-through of hard-edged lines of differing colours. Every colour of these imposed lines represents an aspect of my life that has, at different times, served to keep me steady and grounded amidst my internal chaos. White represents family, something that is present in all the paintings, reflecting the importance of family to me. Orange represents friends or the family you choose. Green represents my passion, art. Without these stable lines, my life would be the turmoil represented in the rest of the art, sometimes serene and beautiful but also sometimes chaotic, representing me feeling dangerously close to falling off a cliff or consumed with being out of control.

Although each individual painting is a window into specific feelings, the paintings are grouped together to create a large collage. As a collection, the paintings express my lived experience—the totality of my life—rather than a reflection of one day. Collectively, the pieces can also be overwhelming, which reflects how I often feel. “Why can’t you just be…” exposes the damaging and alienating question often asked of neurodivergent people: why can’t you just be normal? The title “Why can’t you just be…” is intended to spin the question back to the viewer as they absorb and digest both the individual work and the collection.

It is imperative that we continue to push open the doors and break traditional boundaries regarding mental health so we can collectively embrace the entirety of someone’s life, not just the pieces which make us comfortable. I am encouraged that research has validated that exhibitions by artists who suffer from mental health issues are found to help generate conversations about mental health and dismantle stereotypes.1

I have three hopes for my exhibition. First, it is my hope that through my art and statement, you can understand the complexity of people who live with a neurodivergent diagnosis. Second, it is my hope that “Why can’t you just be….” stimulates you to think positively and differently about neurodivergence and helps you ‘see’ and accept the whole person. Finally, it is my hope that this work can inspire you to be the white, yellow, or green line in someone’s life, the stabilizing factor that people with neurodivergence often seek.

References

Emin, Tracey. 2015. “Tracey Emin, ‘My Bed’.” Tate. Tate. April 2. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-my-bed-l03662/ tracey-emin-my-bed.

1 Koh, Eugen, and Bradley Shrimpton. 2013. “Art Promoting Mental Health Literacy and a Positive Attitude towards People with Experience of Mental Illness.” International Journal of Social Psychiatry 60 (2): 169–74. doi:10.1177/0020764013476655. “Leading a Movement to Drive Change.” n.d. CAMH. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. http://www.camh.ca/en/ driving-change.

“Why

can’t you just be...”

Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 72 “, 2023

“Why can’t you just be...” Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 40”, 2023

“Why can’t you just be...” Acrylic on canvas, 30“ x 12”, 2023

“Why can’t you just be...” Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 72”, 2023

“Why can’t you just be...” Acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”, 2023

Meat Vessels, dimensions vary

EMILY AU

OF EARTH AND FLESH

Of Earth and Flesh engages with the idea of the abject, a theory concerned with the disruption of the distinct categories between self and other, of life and death. As philosopher Julia Kristeva notes, the abject is a threat to the perception of a clean and moral reality (Kristeva, 1982); viewers react accordingly to abject subjects through discomfort. My vessels exist in a space between life and death since unlike real meat, their ceramic nature is permanently imperishable, never given the capability to rot. Through removing meat’s capacity to decompose, my work defies death and asserts itself as unnatural, as abject. Yet, the vessels are not truly part of the living either as they directly mimic something dead: the animal corpse. The flesh my vessels emulate have never known life and yet, they perform as a direct simulation of the butchered animal body. Thus, the vessels from Of Earth and Flesh reside in between human concepts of life and death, while simultaneously defying both. They challenge the preconceived notion of the binary of alive and dead, separating themselves from convention, cleanliness and comprehensibility.

Meat and the animal exist as liminal, as their bodies go through transitions, first holding life then into cold flesh and finally into nourishment for human bodies. The nature of raw meat is fleeting as it either gets cooked for human consumption, or must perish and return back to the earth. Thus the state we see meat in, whether at the grocery store or at home, is certainly short-lived. My vessels freeze time, as I never give them the ability to rot or be cooked. Instead, I manipulate the ‘flesh’ in order to immortalize meat and the animaI, creating something with the purpose of being looked upon and adored. Rather than being slayed for the purpose of eating, I carefully carve and construct my ceramic meat to create vases with the intention they be viewed.

This project blossomed from my own abjection towards raw meat, induced by my lifestyle as someone who follows a primarily plant-based diet. When engaging with Of Earth and Flesh, the audience is given the chance to introspect how I feel when looking at the dismembered animal body. The feeling I experience when facing slaughtered animal carcasses mirrors seamlessly with Kristeva’s examination of abjection. Kristeva elaborates on the abject by stating, “The spasms and vomiting that protect me. The repugnance, the retching that thrusts me to the side and turns me away from defilement, sewage, and muck”.1 This very repugnance is what I have explored through the creation of these vases and the feeling I get through my inability to disassociate the animal’s body from mine. As the popular diet in the West is carnivorous, it is safe to assume that most of the population does not feel chilling discomfort while walking through the grocery aisles of meat. Rather, many folk have become desensitized to the abundance of carnage ready for purchase. Yet, when looking at these vessels, one may be able to feel a glimpse of my discomfort, if only for a fleeting moment. The strangeness of the objects brings the consciousness back to recognizing meat’s pre-slaughtered form, and what precisely was lost for consumption. As this ‘meat’ gets to exist in the gallery, the space becomes the staged and replacement grocery store where the vessels stand-in for traditional cuts of meat in the frigid aisles. By transforming the gallery plinths into a symbolic grocery store display, I recreate the place where my anxiety fosters. The audience takes my place when viewing the work as they may find themselves uncomfortable gazing upon the strange and unthinkable objects, mirroring how I feel while looking at raw meat.

Using my vegetarian gaze, Maple Wood Smoked Bacon Vessel came about as I wondered how the cold flesh at the grocery store would manifest as a decorative object. Through creating this piece, I became a butcher in my own right, a role I actively oppose in my daily life. I took pleasure in cutting, tearing and manipulating the clay as I slowly embraced my new position. However, during construction, there is a contest between the clay and I, as I fight for the

1 1 Julia Kristeva. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. (European Perspectives: A Series of the Columbia University Press, 1982), 2

strips to defy gravity when all they want is to resist my wishes and lazily flounder back onto the table. Although the clay eventually submits to my desires, its efforts are never forgotten, highlighted through its perpetual collapsing posture.

Hues of red, pink, amber and brown are applied to render the bloodiness of the muscle and fat tissues from bodies, not unlike human flesh. Additionally, the association between the fat marbling and value/beauty quietly suggests that meat has decorative capacities, which gestures towards the sphere of fine art. The aesthetic value of meat may be common discourse in the carnivorous world but is nonetheless vulgar, as the beauty of a mutilated carcass is inconceivable and absurd to me. Yet, the shiny, glass-like glaze beautifies the vessels, solidifying them as objects capable of both offence and elegance.

The material possesses a striking humanness as my fingers have touched and kneaded every inch of the clay. Clay presents itself as a personable material happily responding to every touch, never forgetting the last contact my hands laid upon it. Thus, there is a subtle humanness referenced throughout the vessels. Accordingly, the correlation between the chunks of raw flesh I gaze upon at the grocery store and my own human vessel/body is what causes the majority of my discomfort. It becomes impossible to separate myself and thus, humanness, from the slaughtered animals, just like it is inconceivable to remove the humanity of the clay. The clay relates to the body through its origin from the ground. The human and nonhuman bodies’ destiny is to return to the earth through becoming soil, while soil is transformed into mud and therefore, clay. Creating an infinite resource through and by the body, flesh and decay, this work consequently restarts the cycle as I turn the clay back into the ‘flesh’, immortalizing it as such.

Clay lends itself to a multitude of parallels to meat. Firstly, clay is precisely referred to as “raw” when in its unfired state, in accordance with meat. Additionally, the clay must be fired, or essentially cooked, in order to be deemed a finished product. The act of “cooking” the material transforms it into something new, carefully referencing the essence of meat. Moreover, clay is a malleable material; its very shape can be manipulated in any means the artist sees fit. Hence, I exist as the butcher of my clay as I cut, tear and mold it through my hands and tools.

As artist Jana Sterbak thought it would be possible to construct a garment from raw meat, I embarked on depicting my discomfort through ceramic meat objects. Like Sterbak, I manipulate the “meat” in order to create something new out of animal flesh.

Of Earth and Flesh is concerned about the objectification of the animal body and life. Through transforming flesh into misshapen vessels, the animal body is exploited as an object meant for human consumption. These unthinkable objects speak to abjection as they blur the boundaries of life and death, flesh and insentience. Simultaneously, the work challenges human perception of a clear reality and disrupts notions of cleanliness, offering a new category of object which seamlessly blends beauty with the grotesque.

References

Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection

Daley, W. M. (2017). Revealing the Connections between Life and Art: Ceramic Artist Davis Shaner’s Place in Ceramics History. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Shabu Shabu Wagyu Vessel. White stoneware, underglaze, glaze, 6.5” x 5” x 4”, 2023

Maple Wood Smoked Bacon Vessel. White stoneware, underglaze, glaze, 8” x 5.5” x 6”, 2023 Stewing Beef Vessel. White stoneware, underglaze, glaze, 5” x 4.5” x 4”, 2023

Corn Fed Chicken Skin Vessel. White stoneware, underglaze, glaze, 4.5” x 3” x 3”, 2023 Bacon Vessel. Porcelain, underglaze, glaze, 9” x 4”, 2022

A Series of Odd Encounters. Analogue photographs, 2023

EMILY MACDONALD

UNDETECTABLE

“Time itself is the medium of human feeling.”1

The concept of time is something that I have never been able to understand. How is time able to last an eternity, yet also slip away without us noticing? The more I try to understand it, the more uncomfortable and confused I feel. However, my curiosity towards time has allowed me to experiment and work through the challenge of depicting time through photography.

My artistic journey with this concept began last year when I made a video piece displaying little instances of time passing by without us knowing. It was inspired by a conversation with my dad where I realized how much older he looked than how I remembered him. He seemed so physically and mentally exhausted, constantly drained by long work days and equally long commutes home. Following this interaction, I began to use time as my medium. I started to work towards answering my questions about time, like how time affects our relationships with one another or the environment, the feeling of nostalgia, and how to express the passage of time without using words. I found that, working with analogue photography, I have been able to answer these questions and create my body of work, Undetectable.

Undetectable consists of two series: Endless Moments and A Series of Odd Encounters. The Endless Moments series includes a book of things in motion that are seemingly frozen within the image, like a plane taking off, birds in flight, rain splashing in a puddle, and animals in nature. To create the images, I worked with a sort of lumen-black-and-white Frankenstein process where I expose a negative onto the page, develop it, then omit the stop and fixing chemicals. By doing this, the paper continuously changes and shifts in a range of colours overtime, like a lumen print (which is developed by the sun). Even though the actual moments in these photographs are gone, time is still passing, allowing these moments to continue living. The photographs in this series are both bound to a book and hung on the wall, with the works on the wall showing how the images progressively change when exposed to light. This interaction between the wall and the book prompts the viewer to decide whether to keep the book closed and preserve the work, or to view it and let it expose, just like the photos on the wall.

My second body of work A Series of Odd Encounters embodies time in a different way, depicting non-living objects I have encountered, almost like found still life compositions. The subjects of these photos usually show some sort of age, wear and tear, or are generally absurd in their new environment. To further reflect the oddness of these subjects, I purposefully offset the framing on the page. These still lives appear to me while I am on a walk, and something about these objects being displaced in the environment captivates me – like a pylon in a field of flowers, a freestanding door in a pile of rubble, or a washed-up bike. During these encounters, I begin thinking about how these objects arrived at their location, how long they have been sitting there or who owned them before, among countless other questions and narratives I create.

1 Andy Patton, “A Painter’s Brush That Also Makes Poems,” (artist talk, Performing Arts Centre, St. Catharines, ON, February 7, 2023.

Upon reading Camera Lucida (1981), I connected my work to the concept of the punctum. Barthes writes, “I feel that its mere presence changes my reading, that I am looking at a new photograph, marked in my eyes with a higher value. This ‘detail’ is the punctum.”2 The punctum is the incidental encounter with something in a photograph, either in the background or a detail that is almost hidden in plain sight. The odd moments in my photographs—the punctum—are hidden within the image, changing the meaning once the viewer realizes that the punctum is the true subject in my photographs, not the surrounding landscape. This series is a way for me to emphasize that these encounters are everywhere, yet they are often missed due to our fast-paced lives. I feel obliged to share the stories from these odd, forgotten, and beautiful subjects.

Undetectable expresses the ephemerality of time during small encounters and moments in our lives that are seemingly unnoticeable. The coffee cup sitting on the windowsill is equally as undetectable as the bird flying above your head – although these moments are constantly around us, it takes time to appreciate and identify them as something more significant than just another quality of everyday life. The slowed use of analogue photography in my work has given me the medium I needed to express my complex relationship with time. It has also helped me to savour the time I spend with my subjects and compositions, allowing me to think deeper into why I find the things I photograph so interesting. Film and time are both precious mediums, since there are only so many frames in a roll of film that can be shot, and there are only so many hours in a day to get things done. There are a finite number of experiences to be had within our lives, and my work invites others to pause and appreciate them.

2 Ronald Barthes, “Co-presence of the STUDIUM and the PUNCTUM,” in Camera Lucida, trans. Richard Howard (France: Hill and Wang, 1981), 42.

A Forgotten Place. Analogue

photograph, closeup from ‘A Series of Odd Encounters’, 11” x 14”, 2023.

Solo. Analogue photograph bound to book with wax thread, closeup from ‘Endless Moments’, 8”x10”, 2023. Reminiscing. Analogue photograph bound to book with wax thread, closeup from ‘Endless Moments’, 8”x10”, 2023.

Ketchup. Analogue photograph, closeup from ‘A Series of Odd Encounters’, 11”x14”, 2023. Sweet Potato. Analogue photograph, closeup from ‘A Series of Odd Encounters’, 8”x10”, 2023.

March 9th, 2023.

JASMINE MONK

Acrylic ink on Stonehenge paper, 48” x 72”, 2023

FOR HER AND I

Historically queer people have been made to hide or deny their desires, living alongside those who have refused to see them. I believe it’s important to celebrate sexuality, even its rawest forms, although sexuality need not be explicit in order to be present. My work highlights sapphic desire and sensuality by referencing unseen, untold and unacknowledged female queer relationships through the exploration of intimate and elusive ink drawings of my partner. The drawings evoke longing and tenderness; the brush on paper acts as my touch. The nature of my work is suggestive, proposing there is more the viewer cannot see; that more is happening behind the scenes. The audience is not invited to see a sexual act, but rather the moments before, in between, or after. In this work I convey my desire with blue ink washes on paper that depict fragmented breasts, armpit hair, pubis and other parts of my partner’s body. Through blue ink and water, I withhold, abstract and omit information to exclude those who feel entitled to knowledge regarding the sex lives of women. Some men tend to be curious about women who love women yet find them unfathomable; to them the very idea that a woman could be satisfied without a man is baffling. I’d like my work to remind people that female relationships are able to not only exist in the absence of men but thrive. With this work I explore sapphic desire and fulfillment through a delicate display of the female body.

I’ve always been interested in the human form, and my practice has typically involved the figure in some way. I am particularly drawn to images that are highly sexually charged. My earlier practice began with painted portraits and nude studies. I felt a pull towards the nude, and the allure of unclothed bodies in formal spaces enticed me. As time passed, I became interested in less polished and controlled representations of the figure. My exploration through this project shifted my interests in depicting sexuality to more subtle representations as well. Rather than fully rendered figures my work features select parts of my partner’s body. The indigo blue ink brings warmth, sensuality, security and serenity with its subtle application. I map out her body with water on paper and practice restraint while letting the ink bleed and flow. The fluidity of the work references the inherent fluid nature of women’s bodies. Like a romantic gesture, the ink washes over the paper just as women might wash over each other. It is not my intention for these drawings to be legible. Instead, they are meant to explore depth and sensuality through repeated and abstracted gesture. They maintain their withholding nature; the resulting blurred and abstracted parts of the body reference the historical erasure of queer women, while the whites of the paper keep just enough out of reach, maintaining the works’ elusive nature.

The works are done on an array of papers of varying sizes, including small accordion books that I refer to as Pillow Books. Throughout the series the same blue ink seeps into the paper, erupting and dissipating amidst the negative space. It reveals the same breasts, pubic hair, armpit hair, belly button, thighs, ass and vulva. The works are titled with the dates on which they were made as though they are letters or journal

entries. The Pillow Books offer a more intimate perspective, referencing Japanese diaries of the Heian period, personal journals often kept in a woman’s sleeping quarters. Among the most well-known is that of Japanese court lady Sei Shōnagon, whose pillow book contained her private musings and reminiscences.1 The accordion paper holds abstracted tender moments with breaks in information. The paper itself mimics the folds and bends of the body. The blue wash flows over and onto the next page. These books can be compactly stowed away, but while on display the pages are stretched open. I equate this to the queer body extended in a formal space: a demonstration of queer visibility. Accompanying the drawings in this series is a type of love letter. On it I’ve noted things I’ve said to my partner, written to her, written about her, then redacting some of the more descriptive information. Some of the sentiments are tender, some are of a more sexual nature, some read as erotic simply due to the redactions. With purposeful ink strokes, any sources of affection once present become illegible to viewers. My attempt to reference unseen, untold and unacknowledged queer relationships has manifested into this censored piece. However, these edits are not made to serve others; they are made to exclude all except my partner. She has an unedited copy.

The provocative essence of this work draws in its audience before its evasive nature repels their gaze. The works reference the fluidity of the material and the subject matter: organic, amorphous and illegible. Through decisive reticence, the repetition of subtle gesture, and the exploration of fluidity, my work references unseen, untold and unacknowledged female queer relationships, accentuating sapphic desire and sensuality. I embody my own desire and explore what can transpire when it is allowed to expand beyond imposed or limiting notions. This expression of sexuality exists separate from and in opposition to those that feel entitled to decipher what they can never share or be a part of. This work is not for them: it is only for her and I.

1 Naomi Fukumori, “Sei Shonagon’s Makura No Soshi: A Re-Visionary History,” The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 31, no. 1 (1997), https://doi.org/10.2307/489680,

March 16th, 2023. Acrylic ink on accordion sketchbook, 5.5” x 82”, 2023.

From left to right: January 18th, 2023 #1, #2, #3. Acrylic ink on Stonehenge paper, 26” x 40”, 2023 From left to right: November 10th, 2022 #1, #2, #4. Acrylic ink on Stonehenge paper, 22” x 30”, 2022

February 10th, 2023. Acrylic ink on Stonehenge paper, 9 7/8” x 13 7/8”, 2023

MARCEL GRIMARD

Monster. Oil pastel on paper, 36”x 24”, 2022 Birds. Oil pastel on paper, 36”x 24”, 2023

C’EST LE DÉBUT D’UN TEMPS NOUVEAU

In 1970, the Quebec singer Renée Claude sang Stephane Venne’s song: It’s the dawn of a new Era. With its cheerful rhythm, the song announced a new era for humanity where men and women are equal, women controlled their bodies and were free to love, science has unlimited potential, peace is at reach, love is among all races, youth are ruling and leisure is available to all. Forward fifty years later, our civilization has not fulfilled its promises and in many cases, we are witnessing a regression regarding racial, women’s, and LGBTQI2S+ rights. C’est le début d’un temps nouveau is a work consisting of six glass panels in ink mixed with glue to represent stained glass windows. On each window, an image of a disaster is depicted: famine, drought, flood, war, overfishing, and carbon dioxide accumulation. Suspended from the ceiling, viewers experience the piece as they hear Claude sing, C’est le début d’un temps nouveau. The song’s lyrics and score have been distorted, erased and replaced from joy to military sounds by the West Imperialist Capitalist Elites’ needs to maintain their domination to access resources.

We witness daily through the media outlets an increasing social, economic and environmental decline. The biosphere has reached a tipping point in terms of its ability to maintain a predictable climate. The everincreasing toxic wastes accumulating in the environment is threating life itself. We live an age of anxieties illustrated daily in billions of images flooding our consciousness and unconsciousness. We process them using our defense mechanisms such as denial, avoidance, irresponsibility, rationalization and blame among others. However, disturbing images continue to infiltrate our collective psyche to influence our response to the near future of humanity.

Through these six glass panels symbolizing our dependence to fossil fuel, I convey my personal anxious interpretations of the future from images readily available on the internet. As human activities are continuing their unstoppable pressure on the environment, these images will become more and more frequent about the accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other green gasses colouring the sky in red hue. As visible light will be increasingly hitting these green gases, it will colour, at dusk, objects on the ground in red hue. News will report frequent extreme weather cycles between drought and flooding intensifying food insecurities. The increasing human demographic will put pressure on the fishing industry to overfish the ocean, yet it will have less ability to sustain marine life due to acidification, increased plastic pollution and toxin accumulation. Governments will compete to access the scarce resources until conflicts are resolved through war. These events will pair with other climate changes, which are already making living harsher for an increasing number of us.

Stained glass windows have been used in Christian iconography to express the anxieties of their time. Medieval artisans, and more recently, Marc Chagall, used colourful imagery to narrate the Bible’s both grim or hopeful tales. As such, my six panels with their sublime and colorful faux stained glass are referring to the constant suggestion in the media about the apocalypse if nothing is done. Intrinsically, the faux stained glass panels are expressing the anxieties about the dawn of a new era caused mainly by the impact of the western civilization on Earth, its inhabitants and its biosphere.

Meanwhile, in the last three years, we experienced the direct consequences related to ecological destruction and climate changes with COVID-19. During the first six weeks, we were locked in our living quarter to slow down the virus until sanitary measures could be put in place. Six weeks where our anxieties, fears and angst had taken over the vacuum created by our inactivity, we had to find some outlets: some drank and ate, others took hobbies. As my boyfriend and I are living with HIV, COVID-19 fed our fear to be infected and to be unable to survive the virus. We took silly pictures to exorcise our constant internal fretfulness. Like traditional rituals to ward off Evil, we mocked our fear by making fun of each other. The six oil pastel portraits—despite their bright colors and silly poses—are hiding and revealing how unconsciously I was processing my emotional distress, each portrait translating on paper my gradual adaptation to COVID-19 from lack of control to relative order.

We might be living at the dawn of new era—but, it has not provided promise of a better way. Yet, we will continue to love, to rejoice and to celebrate, to feel pain, to grief and to suffer. Like the medieval stained glass window artisans, their hope was in Humanity’s abilities to adapt to hardship; why our future should be different?

War. Ink, acrylic, glue on glass, 44” x 22”, 2023 Flood. Ink, acrylic, glue on glass, 44” x 22”, 2023

Desertification, Ink, acrylic, glue on glass, 44” x 22”, 2022

Carbon Dioxide. Ink, acrylic, glue on glass, 44” x 22”, 2022

Starvation. Ink, acrylic, glue on glass, 44” x 22”, 2023 Overfishing. Ink, acrylic, glue on glass, 44” x 22”, 2023

A Journey Within. Wire, insulation foam, plaster, fabric, string, paint and plastic, each figure, 9” x 5” x 3”, 2022-2023

NATALIE TAWADROOS

A JOURNEY WITHIN

The idea of control within oneself has been a compelling and complex topic that many artists encounter. My piece entitled A Journey Within explores the roles of control within oneself. Its aim is to show how the idea of control within oneself can empower, limit, and transform personal identity and creative expression.

As an artist, the concept of control plays a significant role in my creative process. It enables me to channel my emotions and ideas deliberately into my work, producing pieces that are not only visually striking but also meaningful and powerful. When I have control, I can access my emotions without being overwhelmed by them, allowing me to create works that are authentic and emotive while remaining true to my creative vision. This sense of control provides me with a sense of empowerment, which in turn, increases my pride and motivation in my work.

However, there is a fine line between having control and becoming overly controlling. Excessive control can lead to self-censorship, fear of failure, and perfectionism, all of which can limit an artist’s creative potential. Self-censorship, for example, can lead to the restriction of an artist’s true self-expression, ultimately hindering their ability to create works that are authentic and original. Similarly, a fear of failure can cause an artist to avoid taking risks, limiting their experimentation with new techniques or concepts, which could ultimately stifle their creative growth.

I have felt the negative effects of excessive control on my creative process. I found myself struggling to let go of familiar materials and techniques, limiting my experimentation with new materials and mediums. My focus on perfecting what I already knew restricted my creative flow, resulting in a lack of originality in my work. It was only when I relinquished some of my control that I was able to break free from these limitations and explore new creative possibilities.

A Journey Within is a thoughtfully crafted and intricate collection of little manikins, each one representing myself throughout different challenges in my life. The small figures are carefully constructed out of wire, insulation foam and 3D printed hands. The wire frames of each manikin provide a delicate and intricate base and were carefully bent and twisted to create the basic shapes of the figures. The insulation foam, on the other hand, offers a soft and malleable exterior, allowing me to sculpt and shape the manikins into unique and playful forms. The 3D printed hands are modelled from my own, to make the little figure truly represent myself; that I am the one in control. The attention to detail in each manikin is apparent in the little grey sweaters and navy-blue sweatpants worn by each figure. They are all carefully handmade using both a sewing machine and hand stitching. The clothing adds a touch of humanity and individuality to the manikins, as if each one has its own unique struggles and story to tell.

An important aspect of the art piece is the string attached to each manikin’s hand. Each one is pulling against the others, with the strings connecting them together. This creates a sense of tension and movement that draws the viewer’s eye across the piece. This small addition adds an element of movement and interactivity, inviting the viewer to engage with the art. The manikins are arranged in a way that suggests a struggle for control. The small size of each manikin also adds to the overall intimacy and personal connection with the art piece. By combining the use of wire and insulation foam with intricate details, miniature size, and movement, I hope that the viewers find the piece thought-provoking.

As an artist I tried to utilize my personal experiences with the idea of control over oneself and my past challenges as a means of creative expression, providing a powerful outlet for processing emotions and experiences, conveying messages of social and personal significance.

Challenges can have a significant impact on an artist’s mental health, often leading to fear of failure, anxiety and a sense of isolation. I found that through my piece I am able to process and work through my emotions while also communicating my experiences with others, but not overtly. This piece has become a visual representation of what I feel or have felt in the past; my mind pulling me in different directions and my constant overthinking, and on the outside, it looks like I have things under control, but truly I don’t. To me this piece expresses my complex emotions of the subject that may be difficult to articulate into words, which provides a form of release.

A Journey Within conveys a power struggle with control over oneself. It explores how control can be used to empower and limit creative expression and growth as an artist. The artwork also communicates how obstacles can affect an individual’s sense of control and how artists can use their art to transform their experiences into a source of empowerment; how the idea of control within oneself can be a powerful force in shaping personal identity and creative expression.

A Journey Within. Wire, insulation foam, plaster, fabric, string, paint and plastic, each figure, 9” x 5” x 3”, 2022-2023

A Journey Within (detail)

A Journey Within (detail)

Bad with Words. Acrylic, spray paint and liquid glass on canvas, 36” x 36”, 2023

OLIVIA DUBÉ

BAD WITH WORDS

As a woman, I am held to a certain societal standard that is sometimes difficult to upkeep. I struggle with anxiety, and it withholds me from day-to-day tasks and social outings, and having to live up to those standards further adds to my anxiety. The societal standards women are held to derive from gender norms, which preside over the behavioral rules and social roles men and women adhere to. The global role of a woman is to be a caregiver, an educator, to be sweet and sensitive. Those roles are then met with beauty standards. The feminine ideal has soft features, a slim body type and must constantly look kept and clean. The anxieties I have already are compounded with the pressure of being a woman, and the feeling becomes overwhelming.

Bad with Words is meant to display what the inside of my busy brain may look like. The centerpiece for this series is a large, acrylic on canvas painting that uses some symbolism that I want viewers to interpret and possibly relate to themselves. The female figure draping off her unmade bed is a self-portrait in a way. The pixilated face translates the feeling of not recognizing who I see when I look in the mirror at times. The fuzziness of it is the chaos and noise that never turns off in my head; that feels like someone is constantly whispering in both of my ears. Some of my inspiration comes from a New York based artist named Maidenfed. In an interview she stated that she covers her face in her work because her face looks different every time she looks at it.1 This resonates with me as she was able to put into words how I often feel as well. I wanted this soft figure in my painting to be paired with the harshness of the American-Traditional stylized panther as contrast. The angry panther represents the male gaze and predatoriness. As women, we are constantly being watched and judged and are meant to conform to society standards that are typically ruled by the male gaze. One of the quietest symbols in this piece but the most significant to me is the “mom” tattoo on the female figure. Something that riddles me with fear is letting my mother down; the fear of growing up and my mother not liking who I have turned out to be or not being able to live up to her expectations as her daughter. The word “mom” is spelled out in a heart, which is another classic American-Traditional style tattoo that ties into the stylization of the panther. The other smaller acrylic painted canvases in the show are meant to be complementary, with the same mix of delicate to harsh imagery which create juxtaposition. The imagery in my pieces is incoherent and dreamlike reflecting the constant state my brain, where my thoughts are not often linear.

The eye motif is something that carries throughout my work. I admire that the eye holds so much symbolism and can be interpreted differently to everyone. To me, the eye symbolizes the feeling of constantly being watched and judged, as my own self-judgment is something that lives with me and follows me daily. Aesthetics are most important to me in my work, so I use colors and techniques that are appealing to the eye first and with selected symbolism, meanings can follow.

I fight the fear of being judged, especially as a woman. I am not always put together with a smile on my face and I do not want people to know I struggle. But my reality is that I do struggle: I struggle to keep my room clean, I battle anxiety and sometimes anxiety wins and the thought of leaving the house in the morning becomes so overwhelming that I call in sick for work. That is my reality, and I hope this series translates what I struggle to say, as I am Bad with Words.

1 Eyeball angel. DOLLHAUS. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.xdollhausx.com/product-page/eyeball-angel

Never Truly Lonely. Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 14” x 14”, 2023

Chrome Hearts. Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 14” x 14”, 2023

SCARLETT RIVET

My Mother’s Daughter. Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”, 2023

MY MOTHER’S DAUGHTER

My Mother’s Daughter is a series of five paintings: Angel Eyes, My Mother’s Daughter, Mirror Mirror, Splitting Image, and Inherited. These self-portraits are a reflection of my ever-evolving sense of self, something constantly in flux. I seek to capture my lived experiences, thoughts, and emotions through my work, constantly exploring the intersection of personal and artistic expression. My Mother’s Daughter is an exploration of the complex relationship between mothers and daughters: “Mothers and daughters existing as wretched mirrors of each other; I am all you could have been and you are all I might be.”1 I have delved into this idea of mothers and daughters each reflecting the potential paths of the other. Each self-portrait represents a different aspect of my relationship with my mother and how it has impacted my self-image and mental health. Dissociation is a key theme throughout the series, and as such, I sought to capture the “subjective strangeness, unreality, disconnection, and shifts in perception” associated with this experience.2

I begin my process with drawings of myself adorned with angel wings, a nod to a positive nickname given to me in the midst of neglect and love. Using Photoleap AI, I generate hundreds of iterations of these self-portraits until a single image evokes the intense emotions I seek, echoing the emptiness and longing of my childhood. The dissociation that arises from giving up control to technology serves as a protective mechanism, replicating the themes of my work. From there, I transfer the image onto canvas and take control of the artistic process once again, symbolically reclaiming control of my adult life. Through this collection, I untangle the feelings associated with early years of dissociation using tangible psychological and psychedelic symbols. Capturing the delicate balance of familiar yet strange emotions I experienced during my childhood, this work delves into the impact childhood trauma has on personal identity and the ways in which the past continues to shape us as adults. Although the work in the series is deeply personal, it also speaks to larger themes and concepts. The paintings offer a unique perspective on the human condition, exploring the complexities of identity, relationships and mental health.

The first piece in the collection and the title of the series, My Mother’s Daughter, started this body of work off as a tangible image of the feelings I associate with my childhood; specifically, on the person I am now, trying to recall those times. The dreamlike and surreal nature of the portrait offers insight into a world of memory and introspection. The image balances between uncanny and ethereal, playing up both its creepy and beautiful aspects. The figure has lush red lips, but upon closer inspection flora springs from her eye sockets and the boundaries of her figure begin to unwind. Reflecting the complicated ways my relationship with my mother has impacted me both positively and negatively, each painting in the series then begins to similarly disintegrate and decompose as they progress. The second work, Angel Eyes, is accompanied by another aspect—a poem, written by my mother. This additional written work allows the viewers a small glimpse into the different pathways life may have taken. Visually, the work begins to morph into fluid-fungi-cloud shapes;

@sainticide

https://twitter.com/sainticide/status/1445411161453834243?lang=en

PLOS ONE 15(2): e0229091. (2020) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229091

“Mothers and daughters existing

wretched mirrors of each other; I am all you could have been and you are all I might be.” Twitter, 5 Oct. 2021, 11:30

2 Emma Černis, Daniel Freeman, Anke Ehlers “Describing the indescribable: A qualitative study of dissociative experiences in psychosis.”

these atmospheric blob forms begin to mesh within the figure and the boundaries continue to unravel. Because this work is associated with the most positive aspect of my former relationship as a daughter, it is the most conventionally attractive. The painting is a love letter to the person I might have been had my mother stayed the person who wrote the poem. Other works such as Splitting Image and Inherited showcase the more negative and often destructive characteristics this turbulent relationship had on my mental health.

My Mother’s Daughter represents a deeply personal examination of the ways my identity as an adult was forged through my complex and destructive mother-daughter relationship. It works in a variety of ways to discover how my own childhood trauma continues to shape personal identity and expression. By inviting viewers to engage with my work and consider the themes and concepts explored, I hope to spark a conversation about the universal nature of inherited trauma and the power of artistic expression to heal and reclaim control over our own lives.

Angel Eyes. Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”, 2023

Mirror Mirror. Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”, 2023

Splitting Image. Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”, 2023 Inherited. Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”, 2023

She Is So Beautiful, I Think About Her Every Day. Acrylic, marker, oil pastel, pen, pencil crayon, conté, sewing needles, and embroidery thread on canvas, 6’ x 10’, 2022-2023

TAYLOR ELLIOTT

FOR AN EYE TO EAT

My works are personal narratives that explore the cycle of abuse and processing trauma as an onlooker. These pieces are about witnessing the effects of abuse in those close to me, and how I have grappled with the systemic issues in place that contributed to this. With these works I am questioning male socialization; the loneliness and isolation of young men and the ways this pain manifests into abuse against others. I explore ideas of toxic masculinity, how contemporary misogyny propagates, and how these things manifest in young people today. The title references this obsessive visual consumption seen in the life of young men, often through online media.

This series, For An Eye To Eat, started as a figurative work, but progressed into a much more material and process-based project, resulting in a maximalist multi-media installation with three main components; a large mixed-media drawing, a sculptural bed piece and the hanging embroidered clouds. She is So Beautiful, I Think About Her Every Day, the mixed-media drawing, is reminiscent of religious tapestry, the dramatic posing of the central male figure and the injection of meaning through symbols and historical references. With one hand at the throat and one gesturing beyond, this figure conveys a sense of pained empathy, a longing surrounded by anguish and disfigurement. Venus de Milo and Winged Victory of Samothrace are used as symbols widely known for their beauty and grace, despite the unnerving sight of their missing limbs. These women, literally objectified in their marble state with hands grasping at their bodies, have sustained a physical trauma, and I emphasize this damage to recontextualize them in a contemporary setting. Red embroidery thread spills out of their wounds, cascading onto the gallery floor like streams of blood. Childlike scrawls of acrylic marker cover light washes of paint against raw canvas, contrasting the dark imagery with the tragedy of a lost innocence.

The introduction of thread and embroidery in the work—a medium typically associated with domestic craft— caused me to spend a lot of time stitching through the canvas like suturing a wound. The act of performing this suture made the project about much more than just pain: it became about healing. Needles hang in place from the clouds, almost inviting the viewer to participate in this ongoing group healing. Another work, Suture isolates the symbol of the cloud and the red embroidered rain from She Is So Beautiful, here repeated to emphasize the long and time-consuming process of recovering from trauma.

How Could You Do That To Someone You Love explores the intimate location of the bed from a masculine perspective, loss of innocence, and the act of witnessing inflicted trauma. The work consists of a mixed media canvas work wrapped over a mattress, sheet and wooden bed frame. The disheveled canvas takes on a more sculptural role, emphasizing patterns and symbols to suggest the story of the young man who uses it. The pillow is embroidered with the text: FOR AN EYE TO EAT TO ITS HEART’S CONTENT. OH, IT’S ENDLESS. Here I am wondering about what happens over the course of one’s life to make them capable of abuse, conveying the bed as a place where a young man loses his empathy. The bed is where you often spend time alone with

yourself, looking at your phone, consuming images and messaging. I question the role of online media and its influence on young people, things like the ‘incel’ pipeline and desensitization towards violence. Algorithms in place encourage endless consumption, the visual eating of bodies, sex, media, all through the infinite online ‘feed’. The light of a phone screen is seen shamefully hidden under the sheet of the bed, many hands desperately reaching towards it. This questions the easy access young people have to a limitless supply of pornographic media, and how excessive use can alter one’s perception of bodies and intimacy. Genuine affection becomes warped into desperation, and through this a young man’s loneliness can be shaped into something that harms himself and others around him.

The bed installation includes a sound component, an audio collage made up of original sounds and sampled audio. This audio provides an unsettling space for the bed to exist in, contrasting the inviting nature of a bed as we know it. The sound piece reveals itself to those who listen closely, in the same way many abusive actions and ideologies are often hidden away from the public, not caught on a surface level examination. Sampling sections from Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling In Love, I convey the romanticized fall into toxic behaviors and ideals. When it comes to explaining away men’s harmful behavior there is a stereotype of not being able to help themselves—a weak excuse for a lack of self-control. The message of the song is changed in this context because normally it’s meant to be very romantic and loving, yet here there is a sinister edge (especially considering Elvis’ romance with an underage girl). In this way, the bed installation tells the story of a young man who can’t help but fall in love with his vices—or so he tells himself.

Healing is an ongoing process, and there is always more thread for the needle. Each of these works examine inflicted trauma from the perspective of the witness, and the pain felt in the act of witnessing. For An Eye

To Eat is a personal attempt at making sense of abuse, and the horrifying reality of how often it occurs around us. The young men of today are looking for guidance and emotional relief, and through normalized systems of toxic masculinity they can be persuaded into ways of thinking and behaving that are damaging to themselves and others. The important thing to emphasize is that these harmful systems are taught and learned, and they can be unlearned.

She Is So Beautiful, I Think About Her Every Day (detail)

How Could You Do That To Someone You Love. Bed frame, mattress, pillow, LED light, acrylic, marker, oil pastel, pen, and embroidery thread on canvas, 3.5’ x 7’ x 9’, 2022-2023

How Could You Do That To Someone You Love (detail)

credit: Taylor Elliott

How Could You Do That To Someone You Love (detail)

Photo

Land acknowledgement

At the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, we acknowledge that we are situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Attawandaron people. We acknowledge the immense harm done to First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities throughout Turtle Island, and respect and affirm the Treaty Rights of all Indigenous peoples. We are committed to the ongoing processes of reconciliation and decolonization that result in meaningful work on this site. In recognition of a history that precedes us, we bring great care to the processes of creating, innovating and expressing that we undertake at the School.

In our commitment to moving beyond supremacy in all its forms, we honour the knowledge carriers, water protectors, the land and all living entities—past, present, and future—that impress upon this space. We invite you to consider one thing you can actively do today to participate in making necessary change.

Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

15 Artists’ Common St. Catharines, ON

T 905 688 5550 x4765

brocku.ca/miwsfpa

Niagara Artists Centre

354 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines

T 905 641 0331

nac.org

April, 2023

Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts