I had a gallery show! AHHH! so exciting. It was at the Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax NS.
It was a collaborative show with my friend Darren Pottie, who is a super talented and awesome art history and photo student.
This is the dream it was based on:
In a secluded field a pregnant woman goes into labour. Expecting her first child, she is appalled by not an infant, but several metal spider like creatures. Her partner, disgusted by the creatures thought they should be taken into town for medical attention. Instead, she lowered the creatures into a large glass aquarium with an electric current. As the spiders sunk, they transformed into infants. As the mother rescues the infants from the water, one of them catches her gaze. Its eyes flash red for a moment. Its obvious that they are not as innocent as they seem.
This is my Artist's Statement about my work:
Dreams are
moments of unrestrained creativity gleaned from personal experiences. My
textiles work in ‘Oh, I See Queen Mab
Hath Been With You” aims to represent the nature of my inspiration, rather
than a visual depiction of specific imagery. In this case, the inspiration was from
an unusual dream I experienced. The Mood is eerie and unsettling, with the
transformation from an inhuman creature to a corrupted infant who is seemingly
typical on the outside, but with its secret corruption still hiding inside. By
creating an emotional response in a viewer through the depiction of the
atmosphere of the dream, it allows them to understand the work in a way beyond
appreciating craftsmanship or surface designs.
The colours of the
garments shift from white to a deep red. White is commonly associated with
innocence, and in this case that remains. Accompanying this are wire forms that
eventually transition from uncomfortable claws and legs to a constricting
garment. The wire interrupts the white silk to show the breakdown of innocence,
with the red appearing as the spiders become more human. Humans are one of the
only creatures that create their clothing, so garments are linked with humanity
for me. The wire then becomes a garment to show the shift from monster to
human, but also a reminder to the viewer of what once was.
