An exploration of the Canadian art scene, the latest exhibition at the LeRoy Neiman Gallery in Dodge Hall, “The Work Locates Itself,” analyses emotional responses to identifying and leaving home.
While there is no consistent medium among the works by Canadian artists Lucien Durey, Shayne Ehman, Allison Freeman, Bitsy Knox, Arvo Leo, Davida Nemeroff, and Tabitha Gwyn Osler, they are loosely connected by the artists’ theme of relocation and their shared belief that leaving home and moving elsewhere “is the new internationalism and an age-old Canadian tradition,” according to the program.
In the same way that the process of connection to and alienation from land is both public and personal, the artists use a variety of media to express the diversity of their experiences, everything from painting and print to books and film. But the connection among the pieces is visually unclear.
Artist Allison Freeman explores the concept of the transient aspect of news and information with four paintings that imitate the graphics of newspaper articles. Freeman removes the importance of the words in these paintings by blurring them, and covering the canvases with handwritten notations, red marks, Xs and arrows. Freeman forces the viewers to question what is important: the information itself, or the impression it leaves on the viewer.
In a more abstract piece, Tabitha Gwyn Osler created three square prints positioned side by side. While each picture is taken in a different location, the compositions echo each other: a person, whose face is covered, is falling from a boat into a body of water or a forest. The viewer does not have any sense of where or who these people are, but only that they are surrounded by nature, and are caught mid-fall. Like Freeman’s piece, Osler’s prints imply that it is not the location but the experiences that make a home what it is.
Bitsy Knox’s work takes a figurative approach to the land itself. Black and white prints are contrasted with shapes in primary colors that allude to features of the land—hand-painted strokes emulated a cloud and a yellow sphere like the sun. Yet the large potted plant in front of the prints brings attention to the differences between representation and nature. The juxtaposition of figurative and literal emphasizes the emotional disjuncture that results from moving homes: bits of important pieces are remembered, but the whole place itself is more of a hazy dream.
Lucien Durey approaches the theme with a completely different vision: an elaborate wind chime made of wood with different objects—coins and pebbles, rings and charms, objects that can at once be meaningless and full of meaning—hanging by separate strings. By taking mundane objects and transforming them into pieces of art, the artist breathes new meaning into objects that are part of everyday existence. Durey’s work reminds the viewer of the challenges faced by leaving something meaningful behind, finding oneself somewhere new, and yet being unable to dismember oneself from one’s past existence.
The ideas explored in “The Work Locates Itself” relate both to these Canadian artists and to the artistic process, while speaking to the changing world that these artists find themselves in.
The dialogue created among the pieces was overwhelming, and the ways each artist speaks to the theme of leaving is left open-ended to the viewer.
It opened Tuesday, Jan. 17 and will be exhibited until Feb. 10.
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