Term: August ’24 – January ’25
My primary practice is oil painting. I generally work on a series of paintings on a theme. The conceptual bases for these tend to shift and evolve somewhat over the course of production, but each series begins with an initial concept or intent which combines a conceptual/process-oriented protocol, some narrative content, as well as formal painting concerns: how line, colour, composition, and paint-handling make up an image, and how that image interprets the underlying concept(s).
Over the course of my art practice I have pursued several avenues of enquiry, but I tend to always circle back to issues of social justice. Under the broad aegis of the harms of patriarchy I have considered the scapegoating of women and children, and environmental harm. In the last few years I have had the privilege of spending exended periods in the Deep South of the USA, and in Ireland, in addition to my time at home in Canada. In each of these geographical locations I have encountered roiling political histories involving devastating inequities of race, class, and gender. Each locale has social issues unique to the place, which seem to be visible in sharper relief to an outsider. This experience of observing carries back each time upon my returning home to Canada, where I can be more observant of our own difficult (colonial) history and its lasting effects.
At the same time as I address extant inequities, I am revisiting the feminist critique of patriarchy (that all inequities stem from therefrom: colonialism, capitalism, misogynistic institutions, etc.) to see if it is still an adequate tool for analysis today.
