MicrocosmoSoma
Penticton Art Gallery, 2015
Lake Country Art Gallery, 2017
This installation grew out of my experimenting with phenomenology and the artistic process. The first works were products of meditations, carried out in quite a structured way. I wanted to give myself a container to note what certain artistic functions felt like on the level of the physical senses. For instance, what do certain colours feel like when they touch the eye, and what is my experience of aesthetic or conceptual decisions on a body level? I am interested in the feelings and sensations that characterize the decision making process in art-making: What is the sensation of an aesthetic decision, or of balance in composition? What is the bodily experience of art-making? I made copious notes on some days during the making of these pieces, and on some days none at all. The structure was to record the date, and then the time I began and ended work on the piece for that sitting. I also recorded any thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and other phenomena that arose.
This process was influenced by my interests in the body-centred and psychoemotional therapies and different mindfulness and meditation approaches (emotional awareness approaches, Yoga, Feldenkrais method, Hakomi, Intermodal Expressive Arts, relational psychotherapies, Vipassana, Advaita/non-duality teachings, Buddhist approaches). All of these in many ways explore the nature of body/mind dualism.
The works weren't intended to be representational, yet I took delight in seeing them form into objects that resemble microscopic images of pollen, or cellular structures. The first experiments in phenomenology grounded the project and eventually gave way to working on the pieces as a collective, in a symbiosis of gallery space and artwork. Artwork continually evolves in its' encounter with us (the viewers, experiencers, perceivers, and meaning-makers) – us who so gracefully animate it by the simple act of gifting it our attention. For me, in this dynamic encounter between the artwork and those who experience it, relational space is lived and illuminated.
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