Exhibit Gallery: Composition

COMPOSITION OBSERVES THE PERSONAL WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNIVERSAL

Exhibited at La Maison des Artistes in Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2021. Click any image below to open the gallery view.

Artist Statement

In this work the experiential nature of textiles provided a connection to memory facilitating the exploration of narrative, dialogue and story.

From the Latin, componere, meaning, “put together “...what something is made of and how it was formed...the spatial property resulting from the arrangement of parts in relation to each other and to the whole... the structure of an art piece...

“Every step along our journey leads us to where we are, right now, here, in the present.”

This body of work, comprising 16, 20” x 20” panels, is an accumulation of my experience. It represents the process of processing. “Composition” observes the personal within the context of the universal and navigates a journey through transformation, growth and acceptance.

Painting, photography, dye sublimation, embroidery, machine stitching, batik, collage and quilt making are the tools that became the vocabulary of this project. Colour united with materials, symbols surfaced, patterns appeared and re-bloomed and the legacy of trauma on the inner child, eased.

Stretching malleable textiles onto a support in the same way I would prepare a canvas to paint on references the dual nature of my studio practice as Painter and Fibre Artist. “Showing the work” of ‘Composition’ as a final product goes a little against the grain, minimizing as it does, the mess of play and process. It does however invite reflection and fashion a silver lining from formative experience. The final product validates: “You are seen, as you are, without condition.”