Markus and I got interviewed for our upcoming show! Have a look, below, and once it's playing you can click the YouTube logo in the bottom corner to watch it full screen.
One Solar Year April 19 to May 1 at the Hearth Gallery on Nex̱wlélex̱wem/Bowen Island.
The opening celebration will happen on Earth Day, April 22, from 3:30-5pm, and will include an ecology tour at around 4:30.
So happy to be a part of this great project that puts the art of motherhood into public spaces! That's my work (dis)robe: Maternity Wear you see near the top middle of the spread above. But it's just one of the many, many poignant pieces that are now out spreading the motherhood vibes in Manchester.
Currently the project creators are collaborating with Air Gallery to show it in various Manchester locations, but the whole poster series is available for other exhibits as well, so who knows where it will go next! What a fabulous creation.
Our book is
finished! Two copies of One Solar Year will be at the Hearth Gallery as a
central part of the One Solar Year show, April 19-May 1, comprised of work by my
partner Markus Roemer, my son, Taliesin van Lidth de Jeude Roemer, and myself. Like the
show as a whole, this book explores the seasonal, cultural, and
biological changes of the year 2022. Local wilderness photos by Taliesin
and myself are the foundation for poems that discuss our human
connection with each other and our ecology.
My favourite thing about
this book is that if you flip through from winter solstice to winter
solstice, you see the colour palette of the year go by. It's reassuring
to me that this sequence of colour is so familiar -- such a strong part
of our collective psyche.
The book is available to purchase at my Blurb
store (link below), but it's quite expensive, due to the ever-rising
costs of everything, so I'll be doing a group purchase for locals in the spring to
at least save us all the cost of shipping. If you'd like a copy, let me
know. I expect I'll put the order in in May or June.
But you don't need to purchase it to have a look! Just click this image/link, and then click your way through the book. Or watch me flip through the hardcopy on my instagram. :-)
What a wonderful time we had putting up the dual-channel installation of w h a t . h o m e !
OK maybe it was a little stressful given the tight timeline, but we made it, and pretty sure we've survived! Here's a little video compilation of the process of installing. You'll see me sitting on the floor doing a video-interview with Rohit Joseph for CBC Radio's weekend morning show, North by Northwest. Here's the fifteen-minute interview, if you'd like to hear it, for as long as it's available online, anyway. It really was a joy to talk to Rohit, and a highlight of my career at this point.
The opening was really incredible for me. Such a huge amount of support from my family, friends and community. I was totally blown away.
Probably the biggest shock for me though was the unexpected appearance of a fabulous kid I once taught in the Netherlands. I haven't seen her in about thirty years, and she, her mother, and her kids now live on the Sunshine Coast, and came to the show!! AND she's an artist!!! What a wonderful surprise to connect again. Yet another thing that made me realize how grateful I am for the life I'm privileged to have. Here are a few photos from the opening. Thanks to my son Taliesin and brother Adrian for the photos. 🧡
Also this guy!! Michael Gurney. What a fabulous reporter!! He came fully prepared, having already checked out the show and having a bunch of really good interesting questions about it. And his article shows he actually researched this quite thoroughly. I am truly honoured to have this show written about by him. He said some interesting things about it that even helped me understand it more, myself. Here's a link to the article he published: https://www.nsnews.com/local-arts/bowen-islanders-exhibition-at-gpag-is-homeward-bound-6574236
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.
Gearing up and getting excited about this installation for Gibsons Public Art Gallery, opening February 9th!
The beauty of installation art is that it's an experience utterly different from the sum of its parts. You see me sharing these little videos as the months go by, but when you come to the show it will be a totally different experience. For one, you'll be walking around in a virtual forest of fabric, light, and sound. Your own movement, breath, and shadow will mix with that of the speakers. One of the things that happens is the juxtaposition of people and ideas--this is as surprising to me as it is to the viewers, because I don't do much planning in this regard. And yet, in the kaleidoscope of our community, there is deep meaning to be found in the connections and contrasts we share.
Here's a little segment of films lined up to project into the installation. It's still very different from how it will be in the gallery, of course, but it does give a taste of some of the many home-related topics that are discussed in the show:
I'm also happy to say that the GPAG will host an exhibition of my oil and graphite works on canvas, concurrently with the w h a t . h o m e installation, in the Eve Smart Gallery (right next to the main gallery, where the installation will be). Here's a small collection of some of the pieces that will be included, there.
Top to bottom: Use My Lungs and Breathe--54x40 inches (triptych) I'll Fly Away (In the Morning)--60x48 inches
Wash Away the Rain--7 rearrangeable canvases, each 4x12 inches
EXHIBITION DETAILS:
February 9 to March 5, 2023 Gibsons Public Art Gallery, Gibsons, BC, Canada Hours: Thursdays through Mondays, 11am-4pm
In 2017 I began interviewing residents of BC's west coast on the subject of 'home'. I had some idea of where the topics might go, but I was surprised again and again by the amazingly heart-full, extremely unexpected, and often challenging stories that emerged. I've discovered through this work and other interview-based projects I've done that in any cross-section of humanity there will be a deep exploration of belonging, and a desire to make the best of always surprising circumstances. This project puts this on display.
w h a t . h o m e installation in Amsterdam -- photo by Igor Sevcuk
The woman in this image went from living as a small child in a mud hut in Mexico to living in a mansion. She now resides with her partner and children in British Columbia, and has a lot of experience with our housing crisis, particularly as it applies to those whose mobility is challenged.
I've spoken with people who live rough on boats, who rent and live always on the verge of homelessness, who own property and who feel that property ownership is wrong. I've interviewed a woman who doesn't believe in citizenship, and immigrants who treasure theirs. Our experiences and struggles with home are as diverse as we are, and yet the conversation always comes down to the same thing: belonging.
I felt such a good sense of belonging in 2018 when I developed the videos into an installation at Goleb in Amsterdam with Igor Sevcuk, with whom I attended art school, in the 1990's. He invited me to complete this project during a residency, and I was grateful for his and other artists' input in the development of the installation. This experience itself was such a gift to me! I spent time with my old friend Igor, his wonderful artist partner Go Eun Im, my own partner and assistant Markus Roemer, and developed a project that means so much to me, in the country where I first studied art. I've never been truly at home in the Netherlands, despite having quite a bit of family and history there. But this experience reminded me of the things that make us home: community, acceptance, and a feeling that what we do has value. This project is all of that for me.
Igor and Markus during installation.
Would you like to see more? Well you can! Over the months leading up to the Gibsons installation of w h a t . h o m e I'll be sharing some of the clips from the project via these two feeds:
Please do follow along; share with your communities, and of course... come to the installation in February, where you can walk among the landscapes and people of our west coast and add your own silhouette and stories to the project.
1994, Royal Academy of Visual Art, the Hague, Netherlands: My first painting instructor showed up to my studio during the first week and told me to get rid of the acrylics. He pointed to a painting sitting drying under the table, and described the dullness; the surface quickly losing any and all beauty it might have possessed just minutes before. So I did, and have been bonded to a series of ever-more-ecologically-friendly oil paints and mediums ever since.
I've used oils for nearly thirty years now, and I LOVE them. I love the smell, the feeling of them, the way they layer and all the ways I can scratch and draw through them. I grew up as a painter with oils... and in less than two weeks I'll be participating in a live painting event where oils are not an option (not allowed due to VOC's, and also because paintings must be dry and hung by morning!) So here I am teaching myself a new skill in a hurry!!! It turns out very little of my painting style and technique translates to acrylic, so I'm having to reinvent myself.
Anyway, here's my beautiful mama in one of her happy places. She's my first attempt at finding a new style and technique using only acrylics. It didn't go at all the way I thought it would, but I'm getting somewhere I like, anyway. And it's already dry!
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