Karina Bergmans

Jelly Roll, part of YAYHAY! CAFKA.21, 2021. Image credit David Botros

The kernel of inspiration for YAY HAY was an exploration of the aesthetics of landscape, particularly the view of a freshly baled farmer's field. The sight of hay bales neatly wrapped in white fabric, dotting the landscape like marshmallows, offers a sense of rural order and an opportunity to reflect on the importance of agricultural labour.  

A previous project entitled OOH AH WOW was an intervention that brought graffiti styled, hay stuffed sculptures to Fieldwork, an outdoor exhibition site near Perth, Ontario. For Cafka.21 Karina Bergmans used the natural shape of the hay bale in the creation of bespoke bale covers in the form of a jelly roll, marshmallows and other confections, offering a sense of protection and shelter for the hay. Composed of straw and grasses, hay is primarily used as a feed for livestock. Wheat, which can also be baled, is made into flour which is then turned into baked goods. The act of baking, especially popular in the pandemic, became an enjoyable and delicious pastime. 

The artist wishes to thank CAFKA.21 for commissioning this project. Special thank you to Glodeane, Caitlin, Shannon, Michelle, David Christina and all the volunteers, donors and funders who made this event possible! More info at CAFKA.21 EVERYTHING NOT SAVED WILL BE LOST. This art event took place in and around Kitchener, Ontario from June-August, 2021.

Marshmallows, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Marshmallows, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Marshmallows, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

YAYHAY! signage, Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: Conan Stark

Eclair, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Eclair, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Eclair, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Eclair, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Yule Log, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: Conan Stark

Yule Log, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Yule Log, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Yule Log, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Jelly Roll, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Jelly Roll, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Jelly Roll, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Jelly Roll, part of YAYHAY! Cafka.21, 2021. Image credit: David Botros

Ligaments and Ligatures Estevan Art Gallery and Museum

Artist Statement

Our most basic concerns as human beings are communication and the body. A ligature refers to the typographic concept of two letters fused together to form a new letter (æ). Ligaments are connective tissue in the body, joining bone to bone to form a joint. The exhibition, Ligaments and Ligatures, connects textile organ sculptures with word association to common diseases. A tension is created by the seriousness of the subject matter and the tangibility of the materials.

Lungs, Bloodclot and HeartAttack sculptures represent the basis of our human organism: a beating heart, circulating blood and breathing. These highly efficient bodily function operate without our conscious thought. Derived from textiles materials, viewer is confronted with oversized soft sculptures of our internal organs, demonstrating the mechanisms and complexities of our biological systems, usually unseen.

I am inspired by the intersection between art and science. By converging the themes of communication and the body, I create cross disciplinary installations merging art and science. Themes in my work are based on our collective experiences of language, communication, text and play. I thrive on redirecting the original purpose of material and recontextualizing it through a conceptual idea. My work presents a didactic opportunity exploring human fallibility and the infinite malleability of textiles in sculpture making. It also connotes a significant affect on a visceral level through the senses of sight and touch. The use of textiles, material that is omnipresent in our every day, offers an instant tactile connection.

I gratefully acknowledge support from the Canada Council for the Arts for a Travel Grant which enabled me to travel to Estevan to present an artist talk at the vernissage for the exhibition on January 24, 2020. Thank you to Director/curator Amber Anderson, staff and volunteers at the EAGM for making this exhibition possible.

Lungs, 2013, Wire, foam, scrap silk wedding dress pieces, fabric, yarn, rope, 70” x 80” x 15”

LungsPneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, 2011, wire, scrap silk wedding dress pieces, fabric, yarn, rope, 51” x 60” x 6”

Detail, LungsPneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, 2011

Bloodclot, 2008, Wire, wool, string, assorted textiles, styrofoam, tulle, 68” x 26” x 12”

HeartAttack, 2011, Thrift store velvet, felting, polyfil, 72” x 48” x 24”

Ligaments and Ligatures, installation view, Estevan Art Gallery and Museum.

Airborne Allergens/Allergens aéroportés, an exploration of inflatable sculpture, was exhibited at Centre d'exposition Art-image (Gatineau). I created a pollen cell, a virus cell and a mold cell. These microscopic cells were extrapolated into 7’-10’ sculptures, fabricated from tyvek and inflated with domestic air blowers. These three cell structures were selected for their spherical shape and their common irritation to the general population. These sculptures imbued a sense of danger, foreboding and allude to the possible, not-so-distant-future when pollens, viruses and molds are 8’ tall. Currently considered common allergens causing irritation, cough and congestion, the minutiae of these cells present a foreboding future that will inflict havoc on the pulmonary system. Airborne Allergens was an opportunity to consider the power of the air we breathe. 

This project was support by a Mid-Career Visual Art Grant from the Ontario Arts Council

Meat Meet is in part inspired by the sumptuary laws which applied to both food and fashion from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. These regulations reinforced the class structure of the feudal system permitting conspicuous consumption to only the upper classes. Rich brocades, multiple accessories and particolours were restricted to the select few, as were the choices cuts of meat. In Meat Meet the artists masquerade as cow and pig equipped with an array of fibre-based meat-like sculptures. Over the course of the performance the beasts dismantle themselves going from living wholes to constituent parts. The power position of the distribution of cuts of meat is taken on by the animals themselves.

This project was supported by a grant from the City of Ottawa Arts Funding. Photos by Lucyna Danuta Bakowska.

In 2016, I collaborated with Christine Mockett to work again with the Amethyst Centre for Women and Addiction. In this series of workshops we developed a “Stepping Stones” course for the clients at Amethyst. Participants learned how to create concrete stepping stones, molds, plaques, hypertufa containers and mosaic. With guest artist Deborah Margo, participants learned how to set their stepping stones in the ground, plant and place their hypertufa pots, and to choose and care for suitable plants. The course was a 2 hour class once a week for 11 weeks. This project was funded by an Artist in Education Grant from the Ontario Arts Council.

A big concrete 'A' fresh from a mold.

An oddment is defined as “something left over” and “something odd”, often making reference to fabric or remnants of textile materials. In my new series Oddments, I am integrating studio accretion into 2-d wall works. Bits and bobs, snippets and serger cuttings are valuable to me in term of texture, colour, shape, size and past history. Having a studio practice for 14 years, this accumulation is my method of organizing, waiting for some day to make use of material that holds memory and significance. With my art practice consisting of sculptures, clothing, performance art, installation, public intervention and public art, I often develop large scale sculptures and architectural installations. The practice of creating these works is a meditation on materiality: a focused attention on line, colour, composition and the thread that joins them together.

Oddments was part of (inter)woven at

Ottawa Art Gallery Annex, ART Rental and Sales, 110 Laurier Avenue West

September 17 – December 31, 2016 

Opening Reception: September 29, 2016, 5 PM 

Participating artists: Karina Bergmans, Vanessa Coplan, Natalie Eedson, Sayward Johnson, Bozica Radjenovic, Allyson Rousseau and Jennifer Smith-Windsor

Organized by Stephanie Germano, Manager, ART Rental and Sales

In the summer of 2015, I was successful in a public art commission competition funded by Canadian Heritage/Patrimoine Canadienne (PCH) to create a fun and interactive art element for the Plaza Bridge Terrace, just north of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. With the theme of PLAY with a connection to Canadian sport, I designed a mixed-up hockey rink entitled "Clapper the Biscuit in the Crease". In hockey lingo, this means 'put the puck in the net'. By using elements of the traditional hockey rink markings, changing the colours and mixing them up, a new game is created.  The design is printed on graphic film and installed on the pavement.  Hockey fans will recognize the rink motifs, and non-hockey fans will enjoy the colours and graphic lines. The public is encouraged to develop their own rules and play on the ‘rink’ by skipping to different colours, balancing along lines, finding dots to stand on, etc... pre-hockey season is the perfect time to invent a new game without sticks, pucks or ice.

Ottawa Citizen review by Peter Simpson, August 28, 2015

Funded By Arts Ottawa East Art Place Grant 2015, I collaborated with textile artist Christine Mocket teaching mixed media sculpture building atAmethyst centre for Women and Addiction Centre in Ottawa. We led a group of clients in building 20” high fibre sculptures out of wood, concrete, clothing and embellishments. We proposed a figure sculpture as a starting point, with a central wood dowel support set in concrete, and clothing layers wound around it to make a solid fibre figure. The participants quickly adapted their sculptures in their own direction and with their own materials. Sculptures were painted, stitched, embellished with fabric and wire. Christine and I enabled the participants to build what they imagined for their sculpture and encouraged creative exploration with material and surface design. The 2 hour workshop took place for 5 weeks at the Amethyst centre.

Ghost: a haunting was presented at the Enriched Bread Artist studios on October 30, 2015. Having had a studio in this building over a decade ago, I returned to the space for a slow moving performance head first down the stairwell and rattled my chains. Photos by Jason Derikozis.

Adorning herself with lymph nodes and galavanting through reams of billowing green fabric, the Lymph Nymph is an ethereal, elegant and magical performance of a nymph superhero. Surrounded by nature sounds of crickets, birds, wind and water, the Lymph Nymph moves nimbly through a series of actions and choreography.  

A lymph node is part of the endocrine system. There are hundreds of small nodes found in specific locations of the human body such as the neck, the arm pit and the groin. Lymph nodes work as part of the cleansing and drainage system of the blood as well as the site of production for white blood cells, the body’s defence system. This system does not have pump: it relies on the movement of the body to transport the fluid. A nymph has two definitions. First, it is a character of Greek mythology, most often a forest-living female deity. The second definition of a nymph is a larvae form of an invertebrate animal such as an insect. The Lymph Nymph presented at PROCESS space in July 2015 was a 13 minute performative action divided into 3 segments. Strings of lymph nodes made from tulle and silk are applied to a one of a kind green body suit. A hand dyed, brilliant green parachute is teased out of a customised bag and played under, creating moving sculpture. The parachute, representing the flow of lymph, is worn by the Lymph Nymph like a cape as she prances regally about the space. The entire performance magically squeezes back into a small vinyl bag as if nothing had transpired.

This project was supported by a grant from the City of Ottawa Arts Funding. 

In 2014, I received an Ontario Arts Council National and International Residencies Grant to work with Susan Taber Avila in her studio in Oakland, CA. I worked on all 5 of Susan’s industrial sewing machines, how they operate, threading the machine, filling the bobbin and troubleshooting. I made samples on each machine from a variety of textiles materials and interfacing. I worked with Susan as she prepared for a solo exhibition in 2015 in Tulsa Oklahoma. I was observant of Susan’s studio methods and her ability to multitask the production of several large scale installations. It was an incredible experience to work with a senior artist, mentor and friend.

The industrial embroidery machine.

Susan's dress in progress

Susan block printing.

Dyeing

Dye samples

Embroidery sample "breathe" on my hoodie.

Susan Taber Avila and Karina Bergmans in Susan's studio.

In 2014, my StomachUlcer was in the group exhibition Occam's Razor: Art, Science and Aesthetics presented at the Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts and the !dea Gallery at the Ontario Science Centre. In preparation for the journey to Toronto, I made the StomachUlcer  a decent backpack to facilitate its transportation. I made an instructional video to demonstrate it use and functionality for the art handlers who will be taking care of my stomach during it Toronto sojourn.

Material Witness: Art, Activism, and Fiber at Gallery 101 (Ottawa) Aug 22-Oct 4, 2014. Artists Barry Ace, Karina Bergmans, Bozica Radenovic, Mona Sharma, and Emily Rose Michaud are "each occupying creative termini at the edges of fiber art. Each artist has followed the path of their artistic practice to an expression that is as logical to the heart as to the formal and aesthetic conversation of professional contemporary art practices." I created the piece take a deep breath [breathe] for Material Witness. This inflatable sculpture was created out of tyvek hazmat suits and inflated with an industrial air blower. For the installation, a printed bronchi transparency was projected from an overhead projector. This illuminated the work and developed the surface texture. 

Canadian Art review of Material Witness by Emily Falvey, October 17, 2014

bronchi on the floor

installation photo by David Barbour

August 16-31, 2013

Hosted by the Moon Rain Textile Centre in Val-des-Monts, Quebec, the International Textile Triennial brought together 24 textile artists from around to the world to create an in-situ installation on the land. All artists were paired in a collaborative team to create art based on the theme of Matrices. I was partnered with Susan Taber Avila (Oakland, CA) and the project we developped over the two week residency was entitled Framing the Future. Working with the theme of the matrix as both a rectangular array of elements and an environment in which something develops, our project creates and transgresses a construction site. Textile frames draw attention to the plight of urban sprawl and comment on the need for vigilance towards preserving the natural environment.

Our most basic concerns as human beings are communication and the body. A ligature refers to the typographic concept of two letters fused together to form a new letter (æ). Ligaments are connective tissue in the body, joining bone to bone to form a joint. The exhibition, Ligaments and Ligatures, connects textile organ sculptures with word association to common diseases. The word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word in the English language at 45 letters long. This word refers to a lung disease brought on by the inhalation of volcanic ash. By referencing a lung disease, this word ties together my TEXT-ing project with my work on a concurrent project called Organs and Organisms.  As these ill organs spell out their weaknesses, they depict the universal frailty of the human condition. Due to the tactile and visceral nature of the selected material used in the production of these sculptures, a levity will be conveyed despite the challenging theme.. Through the morphing of the organs and words, a tension is created by the seriousness of the subject matter and the tangibility of the materials.

Ligaments and Ligatures was exhibited at Ottawa City Hall Art Gallery June 14 - July 28, 2013 and

Harcourt House Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, August 22-September 6, 2013

Links to Reviews and blogging about Ligaments and Ligatures:

Stitching The Perfect Stomach, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Paul Gessell

 Art and Science Journal by Lee Jones

Mobile and Making by Mel Hugo

Edmonton Journal Blogs by Fish Griwkowsky

For an outdoor exhibition at Ottawa’s 2012 Winterlude festival, I created Lost Mitten Mountain/Montagne de Mitaines Perdue. Having amassed a large number of mittens and gloves from my Lost Mitten Project (2001-2007), I re-visited this concept for the culmination of the project on a large scale. Public enthusiasm from previous lost mitten installations was passionate, as we all have the experience of losing a favourite mitten or glove. It is a common experience we share in a winter climate and we process the mitten’s disappearance in the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression (in the case of a special mitten) and finally, acceptance. The symbol of a mountain was inspired by the landscape at a recent artistic residency at the Banff Centre (Alberta). It also is the reality of the volume of mittens and gloves that are lost each winter: that one could really build a mountain out of these lost items. By losing these mittens and gloves, the public has made a communal contribution to this project.

Think Tank consists of 5 Thinking Caps that have been used in small group interventions where ‘good ideas’ are developed and shared. The act of putting on a soft, tactile Thinking Cap often prompts silliness and candid expressions. A Brain Drain conduit cord facilitates connection and thought exchange.

Exhibition and public participation at Other Gallery, Banff Centre, October 2011

In October 2011, I worked as an Artist-In-Residence at the Banff Centre in Banff Alberta. I brought a whole lot of fabric and material and was very productive in the studio. The residency provided me the the time, space and support to merge my Text-ing project with my work on Organs and Organisms. The work produced in the residency became Ligaments and Ligatures, exhibited in 2013. Residing at the Banff Centre was an amazing experience of art, mountains, artists, making, soirees, performances, staying up late, working hard, friends, eating, mountains, hiking, art art art...

For an outdoor exhibition at Fieldwork, I created graffiti word sculptures entitled OOH, AH, WOW.  In selecting words for this exhibition, I considered the palindrome (a word that can be spelled backwards and forwards i.e.: racecar), but I also looked at letters that can be flipped vertically and be the same letter i.e.: U, T, A, O, W, H, M, X, Y, V,  because the work could be be viewed from front and back. Influenced by graffitti style font and lettering, I chose the words OOH, AH, and WOW because they illicit excitement and isolate the graffiti tagging aesthetic to a bucolic environment. The sculptures were fabricated from household tarp, sewn in the studio, stuffed on-site with hay and t-bars. This work was exhibited from September 2011-April 2012. Over the 8 months in the field, the words changed alot: absorbed sun and rain, froze, sagged, faded but remained intact and upright. 

Please visit Fieldwork for more about this unique exhibition space near Perth, Ontario.

OOH, AH WOW in December 2011

OOH, AH WOW in February 2012

OOH, AH WOW in April 2012

WOW in April 2012

Time Lapse of fabricating a giant W.

In collaboration with the City of Ottawa Community Art Program, Text-ing toured the City of Ottawa's Public Libraries for pop-up art inteventions in the summer of 2011. Library visits included: St Laurent Library, Greenborough Library, Centrepoint Library, Alta Vista Library. A final intervention took place at Arts Court during the city's Culture Days weekend. WORD fun was had by EvEryONe!

TEXT-ing et al was exhibited at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum (Almonte, Ontario) from October 21, 2010-January 24, 2011. The exhibition featured a public intervention with over 50 pillows letters in which the public was invited to create words, take pictures and rest or lounge with their favorite letter. Images were uploaded to a flickr site created for the project. A web cam broadcast this intervention during the museum’s public hours and was featured on Museum’s website during the run of the exhibition. Additional interactive word-making opportunities included magnetic letters, velcro letters and a chalk board. In addition to the Latin alphabet, soft sculptures were created in other languages including Mandarin, Hindi and Russian, as an exploration of scripts in Chinese Characters, Devanagari and Cyrillic, the most spoken languages in the world that use a script other than the Latin alphabet.

Text-ing public intervention at Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn NYC, 2009

Text-ing public intervention at Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn NYC, 2009

Text-ing public intervention at Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn NYC, 2009

"Free Fall" at Gallery 101 (Ottawa) for Intercontinental Divide, an artist exchange exhibition with Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver, 2009

"The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over a Lazy Dog" is a pangram: a sentence that uses all the letters in the alphabet, often used for keyboard exercises, or typeset font tests. This work was exhibited at Corridor Gallery, Ottawa, 2010. 

Text-ing at Blink Gallery, 2009

Text-ing as a public intervention at Blink Gallery, 2009

Text-ing as a public intervention at Blink Gallery, 2009

'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' was exhibited at Stride Gallery +15 Window Project at the Epcor Performing Arts Centre, Calgary, AB 2010

From 2008-around 2013 (and sometimes on and off again for myself and special orders), I created clothes from reclaimed fabric and clothing for sales at craft shows, art shows and at my studio. All items were one-of-kind, made by draping on a dress form, pinning and sewing. No patterns were used which made each piece unique and special. Skirts, shirts, sweaters, shrugs were comfortable, wearable and interesting. Over the years, I participated Idle Hands Craft Show, the New Art Festival, ArtsPark, Shang Winter Craft Sale, Culture Days Studio Open House Ottawa, and Art In Strathcona Park

New Art Festival booth

TEXT-ING began in 2007 with the creation of the words COZY, SAFE and WARM in pillow letters. The alphabet pillows are made of reclaimed fabric and stuffed with polyfill from old pillows. I documented these word pillows in incongruent places such as COZY under a bridge, SAFE on construction equipment. After having created these words, I created the entire alphabet in pillows, which enabled me to 'write' any word. Over the course of 2008-2009, I documented many words in public spaces, on camping trips, travel and at the studio. As the project evolved, it was exhibited as a public intervention at the Blink Gallery (Ottawa) and at the Dumbo Arts Festival (Brooklyn, New York), the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in 2010 and City of Ottawa Public Libraries 2011. The public was invited to made words with the pillow letters, take pictures and send them to friends as ‘text’ messages and upload images to a flickr site. In a time in which text messaging is a direct and often exteme form of instant communication, TEXT-ING as a sculptural project allowed participants to physically engage in word play. Other exhibitions include Corridor Gallery, Ottawa (2010) and Stride Gallery +Window Project, Calgary (2010).

COZY under a Bridge

SAFE near decrepit buidling

SAFE on construction equipment

WARM in a Storm

WARM in a Storm

CANOE

CLEAN in NYC Subway

THANK YOU

Man Succumbs to Alphabet

Pleins Les Bras/Arm Embellishments: truly wearable artworks was exhibited at Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles November 11-Decemebr 18, 2009. My image Red Spikes was selected for the poster and invitation.

Exhibition display at Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles

Exhibition display at Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles

Organs, Organisms, Orifices is an exploration of creatures, cells and organs. Created from reclaimed textiles and fibre, these works have an immediate intimacy based on their tactility and familiarity of recognizable materials. The theme of this project is timely as our current state of scientific progress is an everyday news story: stem cell research, biological warfare, organ trafficking and threats of a global pandemic.  A viewer is confronted with a tactile and delectable installation:  at once beautiful and frightening, a microscopic and macroscopic world that exists beyond our five senses. The Pink Orifice Creatures only have one giant pink orifice for ingestion, breathing, communicating, excretion and procreating. Cell structures such as a paramecium and H1N1 are developed in textile sculpture. Kidneys and Liver organs are stuffed with remnants and scraps from other sewing project, thus cleansing my studio.

Pink Orifice Creature (detail)

Paramecium

Pink Orifice Creature (Yellow)

Formerly the SARS Satchel, is now the H1N1 Handbag

Kidneys

Kidneys (back, detail)

Liver (quilt), front

Liver (quilt), back

Man under Liver (quilt)

Organs and Organisms was presented as a performance and intervention at the 2008 Toronto Alternative Fashion Show [FAT]. With two hazmat suit assistants, I spilled my guts from the Colon Carry All and wore my Heart on My Sleeve. We passed out face masks as I wore the SARS satchel as an attractive accessory. The Tumor Belt drew interest and revulsion. 

The Creature series is a portion of a larger body of work entitled Organs or Organisms. I have been researching amoebas, anoemes, flagellas, mitochondrias, and nuclei. This theme points to the current state of scientific progress: stem cell research, biological warfare, threats of pathogens, bacteria and viruses. These creatures were created for exhibition at Ottawa's Crichton Community Cultural Centre, April 4-May 31, 2008. For this exhibition, I created an installation of sculptural ‘air cleansers’. These small sculptures on-a-wire were suspended in the hallway. As a way to aid the air quality in the facility, the air creatures are at once beautiful and frightening, a reflection of the microscopic world existing beyond our five senses.

Creatura Aledonia  (Calm Creature)

Planto Pacis (Plant Peace)

Positus Navitus (Postive Energy)

Victus Vegetus (Living Fresh)

Sero Praecipass (Plant Excellent)

 Exhibition at Crichton Community Cultural Centre, April 4-May 31, 2008 with Leanne L'Hirondelle, Alex Leblanc, Theo Pelmus, Tavi Weisz and curated by Alisdair MacRae

.

Cozy: New Fibre Work Solo Exhibition at Ottawa's Atrium Gallery in October 2007 at Ottawa's Atrium Gallery. With these new sculptures and wall pieces, I explored surface as a means for detail, layers, hidden treasures, and as always, playing with colour. Much of my materials are reclaimed and recycled fabric, thread, string and wire. By using other people’s cast-offs and unwanted detritus, I am putting beauty back into the world that would have otherwise added to the land fill. I continue to use organic forms and revel in hippy, drippy plants, vegetation, trees, along with cheerful shapes that surprise and delight. I thrive on challenging myself to invent new methods of creating objects and organizing disorder into structured, bite-sized pieces of art.

image above: Flower Garden

Flower Garden (detail)

Red Pouffe

Red Pouffe (detail)

Cozy Brown (detail)

Pink (on a windy day)

Hanging Garden

Yellow ( with flagella)

Big Tree

Big Tree (detail)

Carruther's Couch (detail)

Humid Day

Exhibition at Atrium Gallery, October 2007

Grasses was made of grass of a patch of grass sod surrounded by a tiny fence with a sign that invited passers-by to lie down in the grass, if they could spare a moment. It was installed at the corner of Bloor and Spadina over a weekend in June 2005. This public intervention was part of Gallery 1313 Parkettes exhibition, curated by Jenny McMaster, that took place in various small parks in Toronto. It was an opportunity to add more green space to the city streetscape and give people the chance to experience a unique moment on a nice patch of grass.

It was a dark, damp day in March 1998 when I first began work on the ColourForm series. This body of work is about the pure joy of colour and using it with reckless abandon. The series began as paintings on canvas, and has evolved over the years into 3-d wall sculptures as well as large scale street paintings

Between 2004-2006, I created large scale street paintings at the Toronto International Busker Festival, Junction Arts Festival (Toronto), Art in the Park (Ottawa) and the Ottawa Fringe Festival. Created with tempera paints, these colourful paintings disappeared once it rained.

I made three version of shredded paper furniture set between 2001-2005. The final installation is entitled Table and Chairs [Of Knowledge], created out of my shredded university notes, a degree in psychology.

I had been saving my notes for years thinking I might refer to them at some point, but never did. Instead of just throwing them away, I wanted to make use of all the work that went into them in the first place. It's like making new life of this knowledge and information that I once knew, but now is lost to me.

The sculpture looks friendly and familiar, almost animated and especially enticing to sit on. It is, however, completely non-functional. It was important to me to for it be 'useless', as useless as an arts degree in psychology is to a visual artist. But then perhaps since I have been able to make this work, it is in the end, useful. I took pictures of the sculpture on the Carleton University campus (2005) because this is where the original notes were made.

preliminary sketch

Chair I

Table and Chairs [Of Knowledge] on the Carleton University Campus, 2005

Table and Chairs [Of Knowledge] on the Carleton University Campus, 2005

Exhibited at the Enriched Bread Artists Studio Open House, 2005

Table and Chairs [Of Knowledge] on the Carleton University Campus, 2005

an early prototype out of shredded paper, 2001

My interview on rogers Daytime for the Enriched Bread Artists Studio Open House, 2005

Shred it!

The Lost Mitten Project examines the experience of loss. In this sculptural work of found objects, I created an installation for viewers to contemplate the issues that arise when confronted with loss [of a mitten]. The installation was a visual examination of the loss of an article of outer-wear, but can also be interpreted to other forms of loss that we experience, such as other possessions, friends or family.  On a small scale, the mitten must be grieved and replaced in similar way we would deal with other situations involving loss. Loss forces us to change our behaviour. The mittens and gloves found for this project are the physical representation of the owner's behavioural change:  buying a new pair, resorting to a back-up or going with cold hands.  By collecting and displaying the Lost Mitten Project in various installation, it was my goal to create awareness for the everyday loses we experience.  

During the winters of 2002-2004, I collected over 2,000 lost mittens and gloves from the streets in my travels in the hope of reuniting a lost mitten with its owner. I documented each mitten and recorded its found location. I posted a ‘Lost Mitten of the Week’ in the local newspaper. I also collected lost mittens and gloves from the transit systems lost and found offices in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. I exhibited this collection in several site-specific installations and on line at www.lostmittenproject.com (no longer in operation). Having amassed a large number of mitts and gloves, in 2005-2006 I sewed a selection of these hand warmers together in the creation of a series of Lost Mitten sleeping bags. I took these sleeping bags on summer camping trips in 2006 to test is the question: “Can Loss Keep Me Warm?”  This project was revisited in 2012 in the creation of Lost Mitten Mountain/Montagne de mitaines perdue for Ottawa’s Winterlude festival.

Found Feb 8, 2004

Mitten #17

300 lost mittens and gloves were installed from the ceiling of 2 skate changing tents on Dows Lake at Ottawa's 2004 Winterlude Festival.

A site-specific installation in the lower Bay station of Toronto's TTC subway.

 Mitten documentation and database

A site-specific installation in the lower Bay station of Toronto's TTC subway.

Newspaper add in Lost and Found Section of the Ottawa Citizen, winter of 2004

Lost Mitten Sleeping Bag in a custom backpack, Alongonquin Park, 2005

Lost Mitten Sleeping Bag 1

Lost Mitten Sleeping Bags 1 and 2 in canoe with custom backpacks.

Test of Lost Mitten Sleeping Bags 1 and 2 in Algonquin Park, Ontario.

Lost Mitten Mountain/Montagne de Mitaines Perdue, 2012. More on the Mountain HERE

database data from Toronto finds, 2002

Mitten #187