Penelope Stewart
Social Media Link: Social Media Link
Web Site Link: Web Site Link
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Country of Birth: Canada
Province of Birth: Quebec
City: Toronto
Country: Canada
Type of Creator: Artist
Gender: Female
Mediums: installation, media, photography, sculpture
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Work by Penelope Stewart
She Who Is Veiled
Work ID: 27797
Description: This work was done as a memorial to the women who were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. The large female hands hold a nest large enough for rmost people to crawl into. The white healing light shining through the nest combats the despair felt by many. This piece is currently housed upstairs in the old chapel and remains a work that many have found comfort in, through contemplation.
Measurements: 8 x 10 feet/pi
Collection: Bloor Street United Church, Toronto.
Date Made: 1990
Materials: b&w photograph
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
She Who Is Veiled
Work ID: 27796
Description: This work was done as a memorial to the women who were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. The large female hands hold a nest large enough for rmost people to crawl into. The white healing light shining through the nest combats the despair felt by many. This piece is currently housed upstairs in the old chapel and remains a work that many have found comfort in, through contemplation.
Measurements: 8 x 10 feet/pi
Collection: Bloor Street United Church, Toronto.
Date Made: 1990
Materials: b&w photograph
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
She Who Is Veiled
Work ID: 27798
Description: This work was done as a memorial to the women who were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. The large female hands hold a nest large enough for rmost people to crawl into. The white healing light shining through the nest combats the despair felt by many. This piece is currently housed upstairs in the old chapel and remains a work that many have found comfort in, through contemplation.
Measurements: 8 x 10 feet/pi
Collection: Bloor Street United Church, Toronto.
Date Made: 1990
Materials: b&w photograph
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
L’invisibilite: un acquis de longue date/ Being invisible is well practised
Work ID: 27793
Description: On each piece is photo silkscreened one of three images. The photo images are of a woman's feet in the water, on the ground and buried under leaves, a reference to the body, its displacement and its affect on gender identity. Scale, repetition, the grid format were important as was the aggressive seweing and the transitory seductive impressions of the images on the organza. The tension between these elements emphasized the silent, perhaps complicit displacement of the body while the random pattern and illusioijn of substance created by the placement and the layering of the images bercame a catalogue, a journal, a film loop, deconstructing notions associated with autobiography as reconstructed by memory and socialization.
Excerpt from searching for my mother's garden Stuart Reid:
Penelope Stewart's L'invisibilité: un acquis del longue date/being invisible is well practised explores the unconscious state of knowing and the interrelation of past, present and future. Three photographic images of the artist's feet were silkscreened on 192 squares of organza, then stitched together to form a shimmering, diaphanous guilt which is hung in two layers.
The use of textiles and the art of quilting are traditionally the domain of women, and Stewart draws on this history: the obsessive "work" involved in piecing and stitching aligns the artist with a given gender construction and acknowledges the skills relayed from mother to daughter. Stewart exploits the properties of the organza, its translucence, its silky threads and easily frayed edges, creating a work which intrigues us with its fragile sensual qualities as well as its imagery. The double layering of the work gives a three-dimensional quality to the images and suggests a multilayered reality, being at once its own shadow. Memory is a similiar illusion - the layers of time play tricks with clarity. The suite of three images of a pair of feet - in swirling water, on pebble-strewn land and in dead leaves- alludes to the ongoing cycle of birth, life and death, all three stages being firmly rooted in the earth. Stewart acknowledges that a return to the land provides a grounding, a sense of healing, and reconnection with the rhythms of the life cycle. Stewart examines her place in an overal continuum. The feet are static in the images, while the surroundings change, suggesting that our environment is secondary to our consciousness of the moment. Memory and history play a role in the formation of this consciousness, but how much is predetermined or unchangeable? Genetics, our environment, language and gender are among the determining factors summed up in the centred being. The cinematic narrative suggested by the horizontal cell-like arrangement of the images is denied a rational conclusion. The distribution of the three images seems random rather than coded. One is led to question the construction of autobiography, the role of narrator, and the linear nature of history. Are logical conclusions necessary? L'invisibilité affirms that the experience of life is the only truth and that our history, like the grid of the quilt is merely a rigid construction.
Measurements: 12 x 23 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: photo silkscreen, silk organza, nails
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
L’invisibilite: un acquis de longue date/ Being invisible is well practised
Work ID: 27794
Description: On each piece is photo silkscreened one of three images. The photo images are of a woman's feet in the water, on the ground and buried under leaves, a reference to the body, its displacement and its affect on gender identity. Scale, repetition, the grid format were important as was the aggressive seweing and the transitory seductive impressions of the images on the organza. The tension between these elements emphasized the silent, perhaps complicit displacement of the body while the random pattern and illusioijn of substance created by the placement and the layering of the images bercame a catalogue, a journal, a film loop, deconstructing notions associated with autobiography as reconstructed by memory and socialization.
Excerpt from searching for my mother's garden Stuart Reid:
Penelope Stewart's L'invisibilité: un acquis del longue date/being invisible is well practised explores the unconscious state of knowing and the interrelation of past, present and future. Three photographic images of the artist's feet were silkscreened on 192 squares of organza, then stitched together to form a shimmering, diaphanous guilt which is hung in two layers.
The use of textiles and the art of quilting are traditionally the domain of women, and Stewart draws on this history: the obsessive "work" involved in piecing and stitching aligns the artist with a given gender construction and acknowledges the skills relayed from mother to daughter. Stewart exploits the properties of the organza, its translucence, its silky threads and easily frayed edges, creating a work which intrigues us with its fragile sensual qualities as well as its imagery. The double layering of the work gives a three-dimensional quality to the images and suggests a multilayered reality, being at once its own shadow. Memory is a similiar illusion - the layers of time play tricks with clarity. The suite of three images of a pair of feet - in swirling water, on pebble-strewn land and in dead leaves- alludes to the ongoing cycle of birth, life and death, all three stages being firmly rooted in the earth. Stewart acknowledges that a return to the land provides a grounding, a sense of healing, and reconnection with the rhythms of the life cycle. Stewart examines her place in an overal continuum. The feet are static in the images, while the surroundings change, suggesting that our environment is secondary to our consciousness of the moment. Memory and history play a role in the formation of this consciousness, but how much is predetermined or unchangeable? Genetics, our environment, language and gender are among the determining factors summed up in the centred being. The cinematic narrative suggested by the horizontal cell-like arrangement of the images is denied a rational conclusion. The distribution of the three images seems random rather than coded. One is led to question the construction of autobiography, the role of narrator, and the linear nature of history. Are logical conclusions necessary? L'invisibilité affirms that the experience of life is the only truth and that our history, like the grid of the quilt is merely a rigid construction.
Measurements: 12 x 23 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: photo silkscreen, silk organza, nails
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
L’invisibilité: un acquis de longue date/ Being invisible is well practised
Work ID: 27791
Description: On each piece is photo silkscreened one of three images. The photo images are of a woman's feet in the water, on the ground and buried under leaves, a reference to the body, its displacement and its affect on gender identity. Scale, repetition, the grid format were important as was the aggressive seweing and the transitory seductive impressions of the images on the organza. The tension between these elements emphasized the silent, perhaps complicit displacement of the body while the random pattern and illusioijn of substance created by the placement and the layering of the images bercame a catalogue, a journal, a film loop, deconstructing notions associated with autobiography as reconstructed by memory and socialization.
Excerpt from searching for my mother's garden Stuart Reid:
Penelope Stewart's L'invisibilité: un acquis del longue date/being invisible is well practised explores the unconscious state of knowing and the interrelation of past, present and future. Three photographic images of the artist's feet were silkscreened on 192 squares of organza, then stitched together to form a shimmering, diaphanous guilt which is hung in two layers.
The use of textiles and the art of quilting are traditionally the domain of women, and Stewart draws on this history: the obsessive "work" involved in piecing and stitching aligns the artist with a given gender construction and acknowledges the skills relayed from mother to daughter. Stewart exploits the properties of the organza, its translucence, its silky threads and easily frayed edges, creating a work which intrigues us with its fragile sensual qualities as well as its imagery. The double layering of the work gives a three-dimensional quality to the images and suggests a multilayered reality, being at once its own shadow. Memory is a similiar illusion - the layers of time play tricks with clarity. The suite of three images of a pair of feet - in swirling water, on pebble-strewn land and in dead leaves- alludes to the ongoing cycle of birth, life and death, all three stages being firmly rooted in the earth. Stewart acknowledges that a return to the land provides a grounding, a sense of healing, and reconnection with the rhythms of the life cycle. Stewart examines her place in an overal continuum. The feet are static in the images, while the surroundings change, suggesting that our environment is secondary to our consciousness of the moment. Memory and history play a role in the formation of this consciousness, but how much is predetermined or unchangeable? Genetics, our environment, language and gender are among the determining factors summed up in the centred being. The cinematic narrative suggested by the horizontal cell-like arrangement of the images is denied a rational conclusion. The distribution of the three images seems random rather than coded. One is led to question the construction of autobiography, the role of narrator, and the linear nature of history. Are logical conclusions necessary? L'invisibilité affirms that the experience of life is the only truth and that our history, like the grid of the quilt is merely a rigid construction.
Measurements: 12 x 23 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: photo silkscreen, silk organza, nails
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
L’invisibilite: un acquis de longue date/ Being invisible is well practised
Work ID: 27792
Description: On each piece is photo silkscreened one of three images. The photo images are of a woman's feet in the water, on the ground and buried under leaves, a reference to the body, its displacement and its affect on gender identity. Scale, repetition, the grid format were important as was the aggressive seweing and the transitory seductive impressions of the images on the organza. The tension between these elements emphasized the silent, perhaps complicit displacement of the body while the random pattern and illusioijn of substance created by the placement and the layering of the images bercame a catalogue, a journal, a film loop, deconstructing notions associated with autobiography as reconstructed by memory and socialization.
Excerpt from searching for my mother's garden Stuart Reid:
Penelope Stewart's L'invisibilité: un acquis del longue date/being invisible is well practised explores the unconscious state of knowing and the interrelation of past, present and future. Three photographic images of the artist's feet were silkscreened on 192 squares of organza, then stitched together to form a shimmering, diaphanous guilt which is hung in two layers.
The use of textiles and the art of quilting are traditionally the domain of women, and Stewart draws on this history: the obsessive "work" involved in piecing and stitching aligns the artist with a given gender construction and acknowledges the skills relayed from mother to daughter. Stewart exploits the properties of the organza, its translucence, its silky threads and easily frayed edges, creating a work which intrigues us with its fragile sensual qualities as well as its imagery. The double layering of the work gives a three-dimensional quality to the images and suggests a multilayered reality, being at once its own shadow. Memory is a similiar illusion - the layers of time play tricks with clarity. The suite of three images of a pair of feet - in swirling water, on pebble-strewn land and in dead leaves- alludes to the ongoing cycle of birth, life and death, all three stages being firmly rooted in the earth. Stewart acknowledges that a return to the land provides a grounding, a sense of healing, and reconnection with the rhythms of the life cycle. Stewart examines her place in an overal continuum. The feet are static in the images, while the surroundings change, suggesting that our environment is secondary to our consciousness of the moment. Memory and history play a role in the formation of this consciousness, but how much is predetermined or unchangeable? Genetics, our environment, language and gender are among the determining factors summed up in the centred being. The cinematic narrative suggested by the horizontal cell-like arrangement of the images is denied a rational conclusion. The distribution of the three images seems random rather than coded. One is led to question the construction of autobiography, the role of narrator, and the linear nature of history. Are logical conclusions necessary? L'invisibilité affirms that the experience of life is the only truth and that our history, like the grid of the quilt is merely a rigid construction.
Measurements: 12 x 23 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: photo silkscreen, silk organza, nails
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Kitchen, The House Project
Work ID: 27789
Description: The viewer was encouraged to enter this room and to experience the space created. The organza acted as skin, membrane to the space..a space that is always active and the site of transmission. The ceremonial appearance, the evacuation of all dirt and the obsessiveness of the manufacturing, emphasize the mechanisms of social control and expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.
Excerpts from The House Project catalogue:
' The kitchen, in contrast to the dining room, has traditionally (ie. through patriarchy) been the domain of one family member, the wife and mother, and in some instances is reserved for servants. Penelope Stewart has approached this room as an alternate vessel--a bodily replacement. Fitting the entire room--walls, cupboards, counters, appliances, floor--in silk organza, Stewart suggests the displaced body of the wife/mother. The room itself takes on the characteristics of the wife/mother with an implied sensuality and obvious functionality. It is a room of moveable boundaries, as it can be staked as territory to which no others may gain access, but is as often the common room through which all can pass. It is rarely regarded as privileged site, yet through its function, provides the nourishment of the household--its sustenance. Stewart alludes to the conflation of wife/mother, as a collapes of meaning and fuction which ensures the well being of the family yet here her actions are not heralded as selfless, determined and committed, rather they are seen as obligatory tasks. Rich with metaphor, the installation deals with the issues of an identity defined by function and questions surrender.' -Claire Christie
'Entering the kitchen, I discovered that it has been completely covered in white organza. I am striken by the kitchen's impeccably clean and ceremonial appearance. The kitchen is one of the places where I (you?) can work incessantly and tirelessly without ever seeming to manage. Here, instead, dirt has been evacuated through a drastic gesture -- whereby social control's mechanisms are made obvious which operates a complexification, by surplus, by excess, of the notion of "the middle-class white housewife, the historically dominant model of femininity [which] has been constructed around cleanliness." The piece operates a mise en abyme: the organza veil comes to unveil the invisibility of domestic labour. This piece, a site specific intervention by Penelope Stewart, acts as a skin whose obvious fragility renders it vulnerable to my passage as the intiricacy of the linoleum's treatment marks the possibility of my body's reappearance with the original floor's own virtual disappearance. This skin also actively counteracts domestic labour's invisibility since it threatens to end its complicit endurance by a lack of resistance. Critiquing the operations of the dominant patriarchal ideology in its construction of gendered labour, the installation poetically and poignantly expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.' Sylvie Fortin
See also Canadian Art, winter 1994, Tragically Hip by Gary Michael Dault, pg 56 vol. 11 no. 4
Collection:
Date Made: 1994
Materials: kitchen, organza
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Kitchen, The House Project
Work ID: 27790
Description: The viewer was encouraged to enter this room and to experience the space created. The organza acted as skin, membrane to the space..a space that is always active and the site of transmission. The ceremonial appearance, the evacuation of all dirt and the obsessiveness of the manufacturing, emphasize the mechanisms of social control and expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.
Excerpts from The House Project catalogue:
' The kitchen, in contrast to the dining room, has traditionally (ie. through patriarchy) been the domain of one family member, the wife and mother, and in some instances is reserved for servants. Penelope Stewart has approached this room as an alternate vessel--a bodily replacement. Fitting the entire room--walls, cupboards, counters, appliances, floor--in silk organza, Stewart suggests the displaced body of the wife/mother. The room itself takes on the characteristics of the wife/mother with an implied sensuality and obvious functionality. It is a room of moveable boundaries, as it can be staked as territory to which no others may gain access, but is as often the common room through which all can pass. It is rarely regarded as privileged site, yet through its function, provides the nourishment of the household--its sustenance. Stewart alludes to the conflation of wife/mother, as a collapes of meaning and fuction which ensures the well being of the family yet here her actions are not heralded as selfless, determined and committed, rather they are seen as obligatory tasks. Rich with metaphor, the installation deals with the issues of an identity defined by function and questions surrender.' -Claire Christie
'Entering the kitchen, I discovered that it has been completely covered in white organza. I am striken by the kitchen's impeccably clean and ceremonial appearance. The kitchen is one of the places where I (you?) can work incessantly and tirelessly without ever seeming to manage. Here, instead, dirt has been evacuated through a drastic gesture -- whereby social control's mechanisms are made obvious which operates a complexification, by surplus, by excess, of the notion of "the middle-class white housewife, the historically dominant model of femininity [which] has been constructed around cleanliness." The piece operates a mise en abyme: the organza veil comes to unveil the invisibility of domestic labour. This piece, a site specific intervention by Penelope Stewart, acts as a skin whose obvious fragility renders it vulnerable to my passage as the intiricacy of the linoleum's treatment marks the possibility of my body's reappearance with the original floor's own virtual disappearance. This skin also actively counteracts domestic labour's invisibility since it threatens to end its complicit endurance by a lack of resistance. Critiquing the operations of the dominant patriarchal ideology in its construction of gendered labour, the installation poetically and poignantly expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.' Sylvie Fortin
See also Canadian Art, winter 1994, Tragically Hip by Gary Michael Dault, pg 56 vol. 11 no. 4
Collection:
Date Made: 1994
Materials: kitchen, organza
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Kitchen, The House Project
Work ID: 27787
Description: The viewer was encouraged to enter this room and to experience the space created. The organza acted as skin, membrane to the space..a space that is always active and the site of transmission. The ceremonial appearance, the evacuation of all dirt and the obsessiveness of the manufacturing, emphasize the mechanisms of social control and expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.
Excerpts from The House Project catalogue:
' The kitchen, in contrast to the dining room, has traditionally (ie. through patriarchy) been the domain of one family member, the wife and mother, and in some instances is reserved for servants. Penelope Stewart has approached this room as an alternate vessel--a bodily replacement. Fitting the entire room--walls, cupboards, counters, appliances, floor--in silk organza, Stewart suggests the displaced body of the wife/mother. The room itself takes on the characteristics of the wife/mother with an implied sensuality and obvious functionality. It is a room of moveable boundaries, as it can be staked as territory to which no others may gain access, but is as often the common room through which all can pass. It is rarely regarded as privileged site, yet through its function, provides the nourishment of the household--its sustenance. Stewart alludes to the conflation of wife/mother, as a collapes of meaning and fuction which ensures the well being of the family yet here her actions are not heralded as selfless, determined and committed, rather they are seen as obligatory tasks. Rich with metaphor, the installation deals with the issues of an identity defined by function and questions surrender.' -Claire Christie
'Entering the kitchen, I discovered that it has been completely covered in white organza. I am striken by the kitchen's impeccably clean and ceremonial appearance. The kitchen is one of the places where I (you?) can work incessantly and tirelessly without ever seeming to manage. Here, instead, dirt has been evacuated through a drastic gesture -- whereby social control's mechanisms are made obvious which operates a complexification, by surplus, by excess, of the notion of "the middle-class white housewife, the historically dominant model of femininity [which] has been constructed around cleanliness." The piece operates a mise en abyme: the organza veil comes to unveil the invisibility of domestic labour. This piece, a site specific intervention by Penelope Stewart, acts as a skin whose obvious fragility renders it vulnerable to my passage as the intiricacy of the linoleum's treatment marks the possibility of my body's reappearance with the original floor's own virtual disappearance. This skin also actively counteracts domestic labour's invisibility since it threatens to end its complicit endurance by a lack of resistance. Critiquing the operations of the dominant patriarchal ideology in its construction of gendered labour, the installation poetically and poignantly expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.' Sylvie Fortin
See also Canadian Art, winter 1994, Tragically Hip by Gary Michael Dault, pg 56 vol. 11 no. 4
Collection:
Date Made: 1994
Materials: kitchen, organza
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Kitchen, The House Project
Work ID: 27788
Description: The viewer was encouraged to enter this room and to experience the space created. The organza acted as skin, membrane to the space..a space that is always active and the site of transmission. The ceremonial appearance, the evacuation of all dirt and the obsessiveness of the manufacturing, emphasize the mechanisms of social control and expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.
Excerpts from The House Project catalogue:
' The kitchen, in contrast to the dining room, has traditionally (ie. through patriarchy) been the domain of one family member, the wife and mother, and in some instances is reserved for servants. Penelope Stewart has approached this room as an alternate vessel--a bodily replacement. Fitting the entire room--walls, cupboards, counters, appliances, floor--in silk organza, Stewart suggests the displaced body of the wife/mother. The room itself takes on the characteristics of the wife/mother with an implied sensuality and obvious functionality. It is a room of moveable boundaries, as it can be staked as territory to which no others may gain access, but is as often the common room through which all can pass. It is rarely regarded as privileged site, yet through its function, provides the nourishment of the household--its sustenance. Stewart alludes to the conflation of wife/mother, as a collapes of meaning and fuction which ensures the well being of the family yet here her actions are not heralded as selfless, determined and committed, rather they are seen as obligatory tasks. Rich with metaphor, the installation deals with the issues of an identity defined by function and questions surrender.' -Claire Christie
'Entering the kitchen, I discovered that it has been completely covered in white organza. I am striken by the kitchen's impeccably clean and ceremonial appearance. The kitchen is one of the places where I (you?) can work incessantly and tirelessly without ever seeming to manage. Here, instead, dirt has been evacuated through a drastic gesture -- whereby social control's mechanisms are made obvious which operates a complexification, by surplus, by excess, of the notion of "the middle-class white housewife, the historically dominant model of femininity [which] has been constructed around cleanliness." The piece operates a mise en abyme: the organza veil comes to unveil the invisibility of domestic labour. This piece, a site specific intervention by Penelope Stewart, acts as a skin whose obvious fragility renders it vulnerable to my passage as the intiricacy of the linoleum's treatment marks the possibility of my body's reappearance with the original floor's own virtual disappearance. This skin also actively counteracts domestic labour's invisibility since it threatens to end its complicit endurance by a lack of resistance. Critiquing the operations of the dominant patriarchal ideology in its construction of gendered labour, the installation poetically and poignantly expresses the artificiality, the precariousness and the socially imposed nature of women's invisibility.' Sylvie Fortin
See also Canadian Art, winter 1994, Tragically Hip by Gary Michael Dault, pg 56 vol. 11 no. 4
Collection:
Date Made: 1994
Materials: kitchen, organza
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Waxing Space
Work ID: 27783
Description: Video loop, colour, at the opposite end of the room; projection.
The gallery consisted of a long narrow room approximately 1500sq feet. At one end of the room, a video loop, of a man's hands cleaning a fish, was projected against the wall filling the space, floor to ceiling. At the other end, a similar scaled film projection/loop of a woman walking in the middle of a river, stopping and looking back over her shoulder, was screened. In the centre of the room, off to the side, were two chairs facing in neither direction. The viewer was encouraged to sit in either chair and watch one loop or another. The loops could not be watched simultaneously but rather the viewer was forced to turn their head in one direction or the other with only the memory of what they had just witnessed. The male hands were body size as was the woman negotiating the river, thus further engaging the viewer in this scenario.
Measurements: 12 x 17 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: video and super 8 film loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Performance in the Present
Work ID: 27785
Description: Site specific installation at Synagogue Palmovoca, Prague, Czech Republic. The total length of the upper left hand aisle, the women's place within the synagogue, (80 x 15 ft) was covered, sewn, and tailored in organza. It articulated and duplicated the details of the floor, creating a skin, a lifted memory of experience and gesture. At the end of the aisle, in the niche, was a video monitor showing a loop approx. 2 minutes in length, of a woman sitting beside the fireplace, carefully burning wooden shoe forms.
This small vignette signified the burning and erasure of memory, of existence and history, both personal and public. At the entrance to the aisle, placed on the floor, was a black and white photographic image taken from a Super 8 film, depicting a woman walking barefoot on a black and white linoleum floor ( a floor associated with the domestic, in particular, the kitchen). By placing the video monitor at the end of the niche, the viewer was encouraged/ given permission to walk on the covered floor in order to view the loop as it could not be clearly seen from the entrance to the permission to walk on the covered floor in order to view the loop as it could not be clearly seen from the entrance to the aisle. This walk became performance and made the viewer part of the work. The long expanse of white translucent river of fabric stitched together further alluded to women's labour and to their invisibility. Each participant's walk mimicked the walk of generations of women who had walked these aisles and made evident their gesture. This walk created a pause, a liminal space between the beginning and the end; it created time to consider these things.
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: organza, video loop
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Performance in the Present
Work ID: 27786
Description: Site specific installation at Synagogue Palmovoca, Prague, Czech Republic. The total length of the upper left hand aisle, the women's place within the synagogue, (80 x 15 ft) was covered, sewn, and tailored in organza. It articulated and duplicated the details of the floor, creating a skin, a lifted memory of experience and gesture. At the end of the aisle, in the niche, was a video monitor showing a loop approx. 2 minutes in length, of a woman sitting beside the fireplace, carefully burning wooden shoe forms.
This small vignette signified the burning and erasure of memory, of existence and history, both personal and public. At the entrance to the aisle, placed on the floor, was a black and white photographic image taken from a Super 8 film, depicting a woman walking barefoot on a black and white linoleum floor ( a floor associated with the domestic, in particular, the kitchen). By placing the video monitor at the end of the niche, the viewer was encouraged/ given permission to walk on the covered floor in order to view the loop as it could not be clearly seen from the entrance to the permission to walk on the covered floor in order to view the loop as it could not be clearly seen from the entrance to the aisle. This walk became performance and made the viewer part of the work. The long expanse of white translucent river of fabric stitched together further alluded to women's labour and to their invisibility. Each participant's walk mimicked the walk of generations of women who had walked these aisles and made evident their gesture. This walk created a pause, a liminal space between the beginning and the end; it created time to consider these things.
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: organza, video loop
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Waxing Space
Work ID: 27780
Description: The gallery consisted of a long narrow room approximately 1500sq feet. At one end of the room, a video loop, of a man's hands cleaning a fish, was projected against the wall filling the space, floor to ceiling. At the other end, a similar scaled film projection/loop of a woman walking in the middle of a river, stopping and looking back over her shoulder, was screened. In the centre of the room, off to the side, were two chairs facing in neither direction. The viewer was encouraged to sit in either chair and watch one loop or another. The loops could not be watched simultaneously but rather the viewer was forced to turn their head in one direction or the other with only the memory of what they had just witnessed. The male hands were body size as was the woman negotiating the river, thus further engaging the viewer in this scenario.
Measurements: 12 x 17 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: video and super 8 film loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Waxing Space
Work ID: 27782
Description: Video loop, colour, at the opposite end of the room; projection.
The gallery consisted of a long narrow room approximately 1500sq feet. At one end of the room, a video loop, of a man's hands cleaning a fish, was projected against the wall filling the space, floor to ceiling. At the other end, a similar scaled film projection/loop of a woman walking in the middle of a river, stopping and looking back over her shoulder, was screened. In the centre of the room, off to the side, were two chairs facing in neither direction. The viewer was encouraged to sit in either chair and watch one loop or another. The loops could not be watched simultaneously but rather the viewer was forced to turn their head in one direction or the other with only the memory of what they had just witnessed. The male hands were body size as was the woman negotiating the river, thus further engaging the viewer in this scenario.
Measurements: 12 x 17 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: video and super 8 film loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Waxing Space
Work ID: 27781
Description: Black and white film loop, projected on to the end of the wall of a 50 foot room. Woman walking across a river, stopping and looking back, then continuing.
The gallery consisted of a long narrow room approximately 1500sq feet. At one end of the room, a video loop, of a man's hands cleaning a fish, was projected against the wall filling the space, floor to ceiling. At the other end, a similar scaled film projection/loop of a woman walking in the middle of a river, stopping and looking back over her shoulder, was screened. In the centre of the room, off to the side, were two chairs facing in neither direction. The viewer was encouraged to sit in either chair and watch one loop or another. The loops could not be watched simultaneously but rather the viewer was forced to turn their head in one direction or the other with only the memory of what they had just witnessed. The male hands were body size as was the woman negotiating the river, thus further engaging the viewer in this scenario.
Measurements: 12 x 17 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: video and super 8 film loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Waxing Space
Work ID: 27784
Description: Video loop, colour, at the opposite end of the room; projection.
The gallery consisted of a long narrow room approximately 1500sq feet. At one end of the room, a video loop, of a man's hands cleaning a fish, was projected against the wall filling the space, floor to ceiling. At the other end, a similar scaled film projection/loop of a woman walking in the middle of a river, stopping and looking back over her shoulder, was screened. In the centre of the room, off to the side, were two chairs facing in neither direction. The viewer was encouraged to sit in either chair and watch one loop or another. The loops could not be watched simultaneously but rather the viewer was forced to turn their head in one direction or the other with only the memory of what they had just witnessed. The male hands were body size as was the woman negotiating the river, thus further engaging the viewer in this scenario.
Measurements: 12 x 17 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1996
Materials: video and super 8 film loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
phalaene, detail
Work ID: 27773
Description: phalaene and breath, 2 site works interconnected N.A.C., St. Catherine's, Ontario; Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
phalaene - small enclosed room, 350sq ft., 1200 silk bags containing dust, pinned to the ceiling. In the video loop, a woman is sewing a moth into a small bag and putting the moth around her neck.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
phalaene, detail
Work ID: 27772
Description: phalaene and breath, 2 site works interconnected N.A.C., St. Catherine's, Ontario; Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
phalaene - small enclosed room, 350sq ft., 1200 silk bags containing dust, pinned to the ceiling. In the video loop, a woman is sewing a moth into a small bag and putting the moth around her neck.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
breath, detail
Work ID: 27778
Description: small video monitor of video loop of woman and moth
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop, 50 small assemblages over holes in brick work
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
breath
Work ID: 27776
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop, 50 small assemblages over holes in brick work
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
phalaene
Work ID: 27769
Description: phalaene and breath, 2 site works interconnected N.A.C., St. Catherine's, Ontario; Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
phalaene - small enclosed room, 350sq ft., 1200 silk bags containing dust, pinned to the ceiling. In the video loop, a woman is sewing a moth into a small bag and putting the moth around her neck.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: silk bags, dust, incubator lights, video projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
breath, detail
Work ID: 27777
Description: video loop of large tap flowing like the falls
Measurements: 13 x 6 feet/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop, 50 small assemblages over holes in brick work
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
phalaene, detail
Work ID: 27774
Description: phalaene and breath, 2 site works interconnected N.A.C., St. Catherine's, Ontario; Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
phalaene - small enclosed room, 350sq ft., 1200 silk bags containing dust, pinned to the ceiling. In the video loop, a woman is sewing a moth into a small bag and putting the moth around her neck.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
phalaene
Work ID: 27771
Description: phalaene and breath, 2 site works interconnected N.A.C., St. Catherine's, Ontario; Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
phalaene - small enclosed room, 350sq ft., 1200 silk bags containing dust, pinned to the ceiling. In the video loop, a woman is sewing a moth into a small bag and putting the moth around her neck.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: silk bags, dust, incubator lights, video projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
phalaene
Work ID: 27770
Description: phalaene and breath, 2 site works interconnected N.A.C., St. Catherine's, Ontario; Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
phalaene - small enclosed room, 350sq ft., 1200 silk bags containing dust, pinned to the ceiling. In the video loop, a woman is sewing a moth into a small bag and putting the moth around her neck.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: silk bags, dust, incubator lights, video projections
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
breath
Work ID: 27775
Description: 3000sq ft. of raw space on the Welland Canal/ Niagara Falls.
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop, 50 small assemblages over holes in brick work
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
breath, detail
Work ID: 27779
Description: details of assemblages on holes in brick
Collection:
Date Made: 1997-1998
Materials: video loop, 50 small assemblages over holes in brick work
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Indexing Language
Work ID: 27764
Description: Collaboration with Naomi London. Core of book in three colours, green, pink, yellow. Each book was installed in a circular manner, no beginning nor end, on a light table so the colour in the core glowed onto the pages of the book. Edition of 15.
Collection: National Library of Canada, Bibliothéque National de Québec
Date Made: 1999
Materials: hand screen printed book
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Indexing Language
Work ID: 27767
Description: Collaboration with Naomi London. Core of book in three colours, green, pink, yellow. Each book was installed in a circular manner, no beginning nor end, on a light table so the colour in the core glowed onto the pages of the book. Edition of 15.
Collection: National Library of Canada, Bibliothéque National de Québec
Date Made: 1999
Materials: hand screen printed book
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Indexing Language
Work ID: 27768
Description: Collaboration with Naomi London. Core of book in three colours, green, pink, yellow. Each book was installed in a circular manner, no beginning nor end, on a light table so the colour in the core glowed onto the pages of the book. Edition of 15.
Collection: National Library of Canada, Bibliothéque National de Québec
Date Made: 1999
Materials: hand screen printed book
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Indexing Language
Work ID: 27766
Description: Collaboration with Naomi London. Core of book in three colours, green, pink, yellow. Each book was installed in a circular manner, no beginning nor end, on a light table so the colour in the core glowed onto the pages of the book. Edition of 15.
Collection: National Library of Canada, Bibliothéque National de Québec
Date Made: 1999
Materials: hand screen printed book
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Indexing Language
Work ID: 27765
Description: Collaboration with Naomi London. Core of book in three colours, green, pink, yellow. Each book was installed in a circular manner, no beginning nor end, on a light table so the colour in the core glowed onto the pages of the book. Edition of 15.
Collection: National Library of Canada, Bibliothéque National de Québec
Date Made: 1999
Materials: hand screen printed book
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
0 degrees of existence
Work ID: 27762
Description: Excerpt from Turning, an essay by Anna Carlevaris. "a hand-bound and silk screened book made of paper and organza, contains architectural plans and engineering guideline for the building of a canal. But the logic of the book's rational assertions is interrupted by the video taped images being projected upon its surface. The video tape, in black and white, show a woman's hand turning the same pages of the book we have before us, the hands (those of the artist's mother) seem to float across the surface of the pages, doubling realities before our eyes. Other scenes, a young woman wading into a river, water rushing from an open tap, are accompanied by the sound of running water. The title of the book, 0 degrees of existence, refer to birth as the starting point of all the stories we tell ourselves and the world. In addition, please see essay, 'Dream Ecology', by Maralyn Cherry, Koffler Gallery, Toronto, 2000.
Collection:
Date Made: 2000
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
0 degrees of existence
Work ID: 27761
Description: Excerpt from Turning, an essay by Anna Carlevaris. "a hand-bound and silk screened book made of paper and organza, contains architectural plans and engineering guideline for the building of a canal. But the logic of the book's rational assertions is interrupted by the video taped images being projected upon its surface. The video tape, in black and white, show a woman's hand turning the same pages of the book we have before us, the hands (those of the artist's mother) seem to float across the surface of the pages, doubling realities before our eyes. Other scenes, a young woman wading into a river, water rushing from an open tap, are accompanied by the sound of running water. The title of the book, 0 degrees of existence, refer to birth as the starting point of all the stories we tell ourselves and the world. In addition, please see essay, 'Dream Ecology', by Maralyn Cherry, Koffler Gallery, Toronto, 2000.
Collection:
Date Made: 2000
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
0 degrees of existence
Work ID: 27760
Description: Excerpt from Turning, an essay by Anna Carlevaris. "a hand-bound and silk screened book made of paper and organza, contains architectural plans and engineering guideline for the building of a canal. But the logic of the book's rational assertions is interrupted by the video taped images being projected upon its surface. The video tape, in black and white, show a woman's hand turning the same pages of the book we have before us, the hands (those of the artist's mother) seem to float across the surface of the pages, doubling realities before our eyes. Other scenes, a young woman wading into a river, water rushing from an open tap, are accompanied by the sound of running water. The title of the book, 0 degrees of existence, refer to birth as the starting point of all the stories we tell ourselves and the world. In addition, please see essay, 'Dream Ecology', by Maralyn Cherry, Koffler Gallery, Toronto, 2000.
Collection:
Date Made: 2000
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
0 degrees of existence
Work ID: 27759
Description: Excerpt from Turning, an essay by Anna Carlevaris. "a hand-bound and silk screened book made of paper and organza, contains architectural plans and engineering guideline for the building of a canal. But the logic of the book's rational assertions is interrupted by the video taped images being projected upon its surface. The video tape, in black and white, show a woman's hand turning the same pages of the book we have before us, the hands (those of the artist's mother) seem to float across the surface of the pages, doubling realities before our eyes. Other scenes, a young woman wading into a river, water rushing from an open tap, are accompanied by the sound of running water. The title of the book, 0 degrees of existence, refer to birth as the starting point of all the stories we tell ourselves and the world. In addition, please see essay, 'Dream Ecology', by Maralyn Cherry, Koffler Gallery, Toronto, 2000.
Collection:
Date Made: 2000
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Sentinels ….the notion of the measure.
Work ID: 27752
Description: The central work in this series was a large scale silk screen of the façade of the Department of Household Science building (the corner of Queen's Park and Bloor St. in Toronto). This building was chosen for it's history, as it is the first building where women were taught at the University of Toronto, and for its neoclassical facade and details. The promise held in this architecture was stability, substance, citizenship and value. The notion explored in my work are ideas of illusion, fragility and decay. The facade therefore was rendered utilizing a photograph which I blew up and then screened in parts onto organza. Each piece was then sewn back together to reconstruct the building's facade in a large scale. The final size being 13' x 14'. There was a second identical cloth created which hung directly behind the first, leaving a small space of approximately 6-9" between them. The massive work then cascaded purposefully onto the floor, pooling in its excess. The effect created by the image, the materials and double layering created an illusion of volume... a 3-d effect and a tension between the ephemeral and the physical building.
Please also see essay by Kenneth Bell, The Red Head Gallery 2001; Globe and Mail review by Gary Michael Dault
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: photo screen on organza
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Turning
Work ID: 27757
Description: installation: Expression, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec.
Excerpt from, Turning, an essay by Anna Carlevaris.
"The strategic placement and design of the central work 'Turning', amplifies the strange beauty of the heritage building within which the gallery is housed. A tower of sheer white organza cloth rises to a height of twenty two feet, drawing our eye upward to the antique skylight (darkened for this occasion) and to the oddly truncated stairway that seems to float overhead. Stewart has arranged the diaphanous material into a column that, through a mechanized aciton, is made to open and retract in continual rhythm, twisting into a silky wave at its base The pristine cloth structure is enigmatic; its spiral movement recalls the organic geometry of a nautilus shell, its hermetic contour reminiscent of a cacoon. And yet, however delicate the materials, its monumental size declares itself as an independent force with which we as viewer must contend."
Measurements: 22 x 7 ft/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: diametrecircular/spiral motorized organza curtain, 58 yards of fabric
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
rosette and coil, from Sentinels…the notion of the measure
Work ID: 27756
Description: rosette and coil' (small), act almost like jewels held inside their frames. The black and gray tones of the photograph have a graphite like quality and place them within the tradition of architectural drawing. The pins holding the double layer in place remind the viewer of the materials behind the glass.
The central work in this series was a large scale silk screen of the façade of the Department of Household Science building (the corner of Queen's Park and Bloor St. in Toronto). This building was chosen for it's history, as it is the first building where women were taught at the University of Toronto, and for its neoclassical facade and details. The promise held in this architecture was stability, substance, citizenship and value. The notion explored in my work are ideas of illusion, fragility and decay. The facade therefore was rendered utilizing a photograph which I blew up and then screened in parts onto organza. Each piece was then sewn back together to reconstruct the building's facade in a large scale. The final size being 13' x 14'. There was a second identical cloth created which hung directly behind the first, leaving a small space of approximately 6-9" between them. The massive work then cascaded purposefully onto the floor, pooling in its excess. The effect created by the image, the materials and double layering created an illusion of volume... a 3-d effect and a tension between the ephemeral and the physical building.
Please also see essay by Kenneth Bell, The Red Head Gallery 2001; Globe and Mail review by Gary Michael Dault
Measurements: 81.28 x 81.28 cm each, installation 167.64 x 167.64 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: photo screen on organza, 2
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
columns, from Sentinels …the notion of the measure
Work ID: 27754
Description: columns', like 'façade', are isolated details and constructed in exactly the same manner. Here the irony of materials is highlighted as the column built to support a massive pediment, has been re-built using a needle and thread. Its beauty, fragility and illusion to substance offer a layered meaning.
The central work in this series was a large scale silk screen of the façade of the Department of Household Science building (the corner of Queen's Park and Bloor St. in Toronto). This building was chosen for it's history, as it is the first building where women were taught at the University of Toronto, and for its neoclassical facade and details. The promise held in this architecture was stability, substance, citizenship and value. The notion explored in my work are ideas of illusion, fragility and decay. The facade therefore was rendered utilizing a photograph which I blew up and then screened in parts onto organza. Each piece was then sewn back together to reconstruct the building's facade in a large scale. The final size being 13' x 14'. There was a second identical cloth created which hung directly behind the first, leaving a small space of approximately 6-9" between them. The massive work then cascaded purposefully onto the floor, pooling in its excess. The effect created by the image, the materials and double layering created an illusion of volume... a 3-d effect and a tension between the ephemeral and the physical building.
Please also see essay by Kenneth Bell, The Red Head Gallery 2001; Globe and Mail review by Gary Michael Dault
Measurements: 2' 8 in x 13 ft/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: photo screen on organza, nails, double layer
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
capital, from Sentinels: the notion of the measure
Work ID: 27755
Description: capital' was constructed similarly, only rather than layering the images, the rendered image was folded onto itself, creating a diptych. The soft, central fold, accentuated its sexual and female nature.
The central work in this series was a large scale silk screen of the façade of the Department of Household Science building (the corner of Queen's Park and Bloor St. in Toronto). This building was chosen for it's history, as it is the first building where women were taught at the University of Toronto, and for its neoclassical facade and details. The promise held in this architecture was stability, substance, citizenship and value. The notion explored in my work are ideas of illusion, fragility and decay. The facade therefore was rendered utilizing a photograph which I blew up and then screened in parts onto organza. Each piece was then sewn back together to reconstruct the building's facade in a large scale. The final size being 13' x 14'. There was a second identical cloth created which hung directly behind the first, leaving a small space of approximately 6-9" between them. The massive work then cascaded purposefully onto the floor, pooling in its excess. The effect created by the image, the materials and double layering created an illusion of volume... a 3-d effect and a tension between the ephemeral and the physical building.
Please also see essay by Kenneth Bell, The Red Head Gallery 2001; Globe and Mail review by Gary Michael Dault
Measurements: 48 x 100 in/po
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: photo screen on organza, pins, folded layers
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Turning
Work ID: 27758
Description: installation: Expression, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec.
Excerpt from, Turning, an essay by Anna Carlevaris.
"The strategic placement and design of the central work 'Turning', amplifies the strange beauty of the heritage building within which the gallery is housed. A tower of sheer white organza cloth rises to a height of twenty two feet, drawing our eye upward to the antique skylight (darkened for this occasion) and to the oddly truncated stairway that seems to float overhead. Stewart has arranged the diaphanous material into a column that, through a mechanized aciton, is made to open and retract in continual rhythm, twisting into a silky wave at its base The pristine cloth structure is enigmatic; its spiral movement recalls the organic geometry of a nautilus shell, its hermetic contour reminiscent of a cacoon. And yet, however delicate the materials, its monumental size declares itself as an independent force with which we as viewer must contend."
Measurements: 22 ft high x 7 ft/pi
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: diametrecircular/spiral motorized organza curtain, 58 yards of fabric
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
façade, from Sentinels …the notion of the measure
Work ID: 27753
Description: The central work in this series was a large scale silk screen of the façade of the Department of Household Science building (the corner of Queen's Park and Bloor St. in Toronto). This building was chosen for it's history, as it is the first building where women were taught at the University of Toronto, and for its neoclassical facade and details. The promise held in this architecture was stability, substance, citizenship and value. The notion explored in my work are ideas of illusion, fragility and decay. The facade therefore was rendered utilizing a photograph which I blew up and then screened in parts onto organza. Each piece was then sewn back together to reconstruct the building's facade in a large scale. The final size being 13' x 14'. There was a second identical cloth created which hung directly behind the first, leaving a small space of approximately 6-9" between them. The massive work then cascaded purposefully onto the floor, pooling in its excess. The effect created by the image, the materials and double layering created an illusion of volume... a 3-d effect and a tension between the ephemeral and the physical building.
Please also see essay by Kenneth Bell, The Red Head Gallery 2001; Globe and Mail review by Gary Michael Dault
Measurements: 1.149096 m x 1.237488 m, 0.176784 cm2
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: photo screen on organza, 9 in. nails
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Icarus I and II
Work ID: 27749
Description: Excerpted from the essay "but, am I speaking the language?" by Rebecca Diederichs.
"Heritage/history/legacy/legitimacy-what could be more permanent and solid in representing these values than a classical column, especially one with a Corinthian capital? Such a column graces the face of a building, housing the Historical Board located on Yonge Street, Toronto. It was exactly the embodiment of those attributes that the architects and tenants of that building intended when they constructed it at the turn of the last century. Now recall the myth of a young man so sure of his strength and power that he could challenge the power of the sun and fly to it on wings attached with wax. Icarus is make up of two massive , composite images of a Corinthian capital, printed onto gessoed canvas. On the left the image is printed as a positive, on the right as a negative. These printed panels fill one wall of the gallery like giant tiles. Although graphically austere, printed in the blacks and grays of a photograph, the capitals appear unstable, shivering behind a veil of bleached, seemingly viscous, beeswax. Icarus (the artwork) is a political still life that portrays the grand allusion of power not very far removed from Icarus's narcisstic feat of folly."
Measurements: 15' x 76
Collection:
Date Made: 2002
Materials: photo screen on canvas, bleached beeswax
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Icarus I and II
Work ID: 27750
Description: Excerpted from the essay "but, am I speaking the language?" by Rebecca Diederichs.
"Heritage/history/legacy/legitimacy-what could be more permanent and solid in representing these values than a classical column, especially one with a Corinthian capital? Such a column graces the face of a building, housing the Historical Board located on Yonge Street, Toronto. It was exactly the embodiment of those attributes that the architects and tenants of that building intended when they constructed it at the turn of the last century. Now recall the myth of a young man so sure of his strength and power that he could challenge the power of the sun and fly to it on wings attached with wax. Icarus is make up of two massive , composite images of a Corinthian capital, printed onto gessoed canvas. On the left the image is printed as a positive, on the right as a negative. These printed panels fill one wall of the gallery like giant tiles. Although graphically austere, printed in the blacks and grays of a photograph, the capitals appear unstable, shivering behind a veil of bleached, seemingly viscous, beeswax. Icarus (the artwork) is a political still life that portrays the grand allusion of power not very far removed from Icarus's narcisstic feat of folly."
Measurements: 1.32588 m x 0.618744 m/pi, 0.530352 cm/po
Collection:
Date Made: 2002
Materials: photo screen on canvas, bleached beeswax
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Icarus I and II
Work ID: 27751
Description: Excerpted from the essay "but, am I speaking the language?" by Rebecca Diederichs.
"Heritage/history/legacy/legitimacy-what could be more permanent and solid in representing these values than a classical column, especially one with a Corinthian capital? Such a column graces the face of a building, housing the Historical Board located on Yonge Street, Toronto. It was exactly the embodiment of those attributes that the architects and tenants of that building intended when they constructed it at the turn of the last century. Now recall the myth of a young man so sure of his strength and power that he could challenge the power of the sun and fly to it on wings attached with wax. Icarus is make up of two massive , composite images of a Corinthian capital, printed onto gessoed canvas. On the left the image is printed as a positive, on the right as a negative. These printed panels fill one wall of the gallery like giant tiles. Although graphically austere, printed in the blacks and grays of a photograph, the capitals appear unstable, shivering behind a veil of bleached, seemingly viscous, beeswax. Icarus (the artwork) is a political still life that portrays the grand allusion of power not very far removed from Icarus's narcisstic feat of folly."
Measurements: 1.32588 m x 0.618744 m, 0.530352 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2002
Materials: photo screen on canvas, bleached beeswax
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Icarus I and II
Work ID: 27747
Description: Excerpted from the essay "but, am I speaking the language?" by Rebecca Diederichs.
"Heritage/history/legacy/legitimacy-what could be more permanent and solid in representing these values than a classical column, especially one with a Corinthian capital? Such a column graces the face of a building, housing the Historical Board located on Yonge Street, Toronto. It was exactly the embodiment of those attributes that the architects and tenants of that building intended when they constructed it at the turn of the last century. Now recall the myth of a young man so sure of his strength and power that he could challenge the power of the sun and fly to it on wings attached with wax. Icarus is make up of two massive , composite images of a Corinthian capital, printed onto gessoed canvas. On the left the image is printed as a positive, on the right as a negative. These printed panels fill one wall of the gallery like giant tiles. Although graphically austere, printed in the blacks and grays of a photograph, the capitals appear unstable, shivering behind a veil of bleached, seemingly viscous, beeswax. Icarus (the artwork) is a political still life that portrays the grand allusion of power not very far removed from Icarus's narcisstic feat of folly."
Measurements: 1.32588 m x 0.618744 m/pi, 0.530352 cm/po
Collection:
Date Made: 2002
Materials: photo screen on canvas, bleached beeswax
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Icarus I and II
Work ID: 27748
Description: Excerpted from the essay "but, am I speaking the language?" by Rebecca Diederichs.
"Heritage/history/legacy/legitimacy-what could be more permanent and solid in representing these values than a classical column, especially one with a Corinthian capital? Such a column graces the face of a building, housing the Historical Board located on Yonge Street, Toronto. It was exactly the embodiment of those attributes that the architects and tenants of that building intended when they constructed it at the turn of the last century. Now recall the myth of a young man so sure of his strength and power that he could challenge the power of the sun and fly to it on wings attached with wax. Icarus is make up of two massive , composite images of a Corinthian capital, printed onto gessoed canvas. On the left the image is printed as a positive, on the right as a negative. These printed panels fill one wall of the gallery like giant tiles. Although graphically austere, printed in the blacks and grays of a photograph, the capitals appear unstable, shivering behind a veil of bleached, seemingly viscous, beeswax. Icarus (the artwork) is a political still life that portrays the grand allusion of power not very far removed from Icarus's narcisstic feat of folly."
Measurements: 1.32588 m x 0.618744 m, 0.530352 cm/po
Collection:
Date Made: 2002
Materials: photo screen on canvas, bleached beeswax
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
