MAIN SPACE EXHIBITION
NOVEMBER 6 – NOVEMBER 28, 1992
RECEPTION: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1992 AT 8 PM

LOCATION – STRIDE GALLERY
722, 11 AVE S.W, CALGARY, ALBERTA

EXHIBITION TEXT

In my recent paintings of artificial body parts I explore the Cartesian mind/body split. Products of rational thinking, these prostheses suggest the hierarchy this particular separation implies. I paint these mechanical prostheses to evoke the vulnerability of the body and the veneration of the mind.

Many medical and scientific texts encourage us to see ourselves as a collection of separate, replaceable parts, promoting a view of the human as machine. I parody the abstract and impersonal presentation of these mechanical parts in scientific journals and paint them in a non-contextual setting. Transformed by their enlarged size, these monolithic forms seem to oppress and eclipse the bodies they are intended to enjoin. At once mechanical and organic, these paintings of prostheses propose a cohabitation of opposites.

The concept of replacing a segment of the body with a universal spare part can obscure the boundaries between public and private, male and female, physical and spiritual, self and matter. In these paintings and drawings I question what constitutes the “self”, and consider identities that incorporate contradictions.

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