current projects

For as long as I can remember I have been intrigued by the interplay between the invisible and the visible in the spaces and objects we create, inhabit and surround ourselves with. My practise is therefore transdisciplinary in scope. I love architecture, installation (in situ), sculpture, photography, drawing and print. Equally, I love materials as each contains its own poetry and it is through the coupling of ideas, concepts, materials and the modality that I can coax a layered space, a space where blurs, overlaps, and leaks occur. I love proportion, scale, and pattern and see these as intrinsic to both method and material. I love paradox, metaphor, fragments and simultaneous meanings that collide, reveal and reconcile. I am always hoping to find balance between excess, withholding, editing and clarity. Though photography figures greatly in my work, I am reluctant to say I am a photographer because the language of photography is about light at play and I would say that though I am interested very much in light, trace, transparency and shadows my ambitions lie in the fascination with space. Photographs often present themselves with a verity and what I am interested in is the space that is occupied and activated by an engagement with the unknowable and the simultaneousness. Architecture and sculpture often provide that envelope in which to act out that play between conscious and unconscious. It is often said of my work that it is very beautiful and though I don’t set out to make beautiful work I always seem to bring that component to it. As well there are often political and psychological footnotes that bleed into my thoughts and find place in the work. It is all these desires, and the unexpected that provides an engagement and reciprocity with the spectator and makes visible that which is often perceived as invisible.  

Upcoming exhibitions of this work

Haliburton Sculpture Symposium 2010 , Haliburton, Ontario www.haliburtonforest.com
Open August through October. Opening event to be held August 14th.
Camera Obscura, 2009 "camera" is a "vaulted chamber/room" + "obscura" means "dark"= "darkened chamber/room"

Camera Obscura was constructed while in residence in August 2009. A small hut was built and sited in a grove of white pines in the Haliburton Forest. It functions as a large pinhole camera. This is a camera you can get inside. You open the door, walk in, close the door to create a darkened space lit only by the tiny hole in the ceiling. Once, your eyes have adjusted to the darkness you will begin to see the animated projection of the white pine canopy on the floor and walls of the hut. Or perhaps it will be the clouds moving around the room or the wind in the trees blowing the branches.

The Tree Museum, 2010, Gravenhurst, Ontario www.thetreemuseum.ca
Open all year, 2010 reception September 5, 2010 2-5pm
Cloche, 2008

In walking in the woods I began to imagine what if there was a huge glass bell jar at architectural scale hidden amongst the trees. I decided at that moment to site and photograph a real glass cloche in the Northern Ontario boreal forest. Through photographing the glass dome in situ it was soon clear to me that the image of the empty bell jar was compelling as it highlighted the reflection of the forest on the outside, contrary to the function of the bell jar. Then when the photograph was enlarged to architectural scale, Cloche, became a blind, an illusion or a suggestion of an architectural folly. I liked the inversion and the tension between the wild or seemingly disorder of the forest, the reflection of the forest on the glass jar, the architectural scale and the photographic process. Further, the knob at the top functions as a lens creating an upside down reflection which moves the viewer to consider and contemplate this reversal. All these things work together to enhance the experience of the imaginary site or apparition of the garden.

The Military Museums, Calgary, Alberta
www.themilitarymuseums.ca
Opening September 11, 2010 September 11- January 31, 2011
Canopy, 2005

This work was conceived in the aftermath of 911, the Iraq War and Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. My intention was to create a quiet site to contemplate sacrifice, and to consider alternatives to war. Leading to the Founders Gallery at the Museum and suspended above the walkway is a false ceiling undulating the 45ft length and leading you to the entrance of the gallery. This nomadic modular ceiling, finds its inspiration in the gothic architecture of a WWI Memorial at the University of Toronto. I began with a photograph of the actual ceiling and using this photograph transferred the image onto large panels of organza, a translucent fabric. The multiple panels were sewn together creating modules that could be repeated and fitted to each site installed.

Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York www.albrightknox.org
Opening September 24, 2010 September 24- mid December, 2010
Apian Screen II, 2010

Apian Screen II is the third architectural installation in the series of beeswax rooms which explores the beehive metaphor in utopian architecture. In this version over 6000 high relief beeswax tiles have been carefully placed on the walls, floor to ceiling at the Albright Knox Gallery, to create an imaginary landscape or cityscape. The source imagery for the tiles was inspired by research into the ideas of Le Corbusier, Olmstead, Louise Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others, who were fascinated by the social model of the beehive. The beehive began to represent a simple social democratic ideal, one that could be used as a blueprint in the creation of the model city, or utopian scheme.

Individually the tiles reflect a scale model, and when placed together a model city with circular roadways radiating outwards creating intricate routes and patterns. This large beeswax map envelopes the room and transforms it into a sensory space. The honey smell is in the air, and the colours and tones of the wax are all compelling and you just want to touch and follow the roadways with your fingers to imaginary places.

Open Studio, (Toronto, On), Engramme, (Québec City, Qc.) www.openstudio.on.ca www.openstudio.on.ca/printopolis www.engramme.ca
Phase 1: October 20-October 30,Toronto- November 3-November 14, Québec City. 2010

Jumelage, a residency, exchange and exhibition is a multi year project that involves the twinning of 12 artists. 6 from Québec and 6 from Ontario. The artist duos will work together at Open Studio and Engramme (printmaking workshops) to create 6 unique collaborations. All participants will attend PRINTOPOLIS, an International Printmaking Conference in Toronto in October 2010 before beginning their collaborations. In 2012 there will be two exhibitions, One in Québec City, and the second in Toronto which will include a project catalogue launch.

 


For more images and details see photography and drawing