How does one unmake oneself from that which they once were or did?

As some of you may know, over the last three years I have been investigating how unmaking can be a creative act that can help artists unmake themselves from perspectives, processes, presentations and imagery that proliferates anthropogenic approaches and representations of land. This desire to arrive at an eco-feminist praxis that recognizes the vitalness and vitality of land as a living being itself poses some very difficult dilemmas as someone who has established a practice and following as a landscape artist.

To the right is one of three drawings I submitted to Westland Gallery's 2021 Square Foot Exhibition as part of me beginning to unmake my large inventory of work. Although lucky because two of these have sold, the other side of this unexplainable phenomena is how difficult it is to put older works out into the world as this is not where I have been as a visual practitioner for the last five years.

Beyond carrying forward the colonial gaze and an aesthetic deeply rooted within European fine art practices, landscapes like this echo the misrepresentation of terra-nullius that gradually led to the colonization and settlement of the Western hemispheres by Spanish, British, French and Dutch empires beginning in 1492, when Christopher Columbus, on behalf of Spain, reached land in the New World. Even materially these little framed sketches on paper signify how much fine art practices, or even environmental art, fails to take up the call to suspend harm against the elemental commons (air, water, land) that is now collectively victim and reacting to the climate change brought about by the Anthropocene.

So how are creative producers supposed to or able to live eco-conscious and ethical lives knowing all that we know?

Trying to reduce the amount of materials I consume / extract and therefor leave behind, even while taking up acts of unmaking to transform old works and ready-mades into new works of art, I have witnessed other artists becoming inspired by the end products versus the process in order to create similar looking objects with new materials. So simply by sharing how one can unmake to arrive at new aesthetics or approaches to artistic practice resulted in such works failing to disrupt the high rate of production, consumption and discard of capitalism that wreaks havoc globally.

Yes, one could retreat away from making anything at all or resist the social media that puts artists more at risk of theft than sales in order to focus on securing public art gallery shows, residencies and grants, but such opportunities are still far and few between in comparison to the number of artists wishing to transform their work from one of harm to assisting with larger social issues. It is also a reality that many public art centres, granting bodies and residencies still uphold very traditional approaches to presentation and production, not only through the sharing of their collections, but in also trying to reach a larger percentage of their publics who desire to see that which they already know. Like the social and economic pressure put on both commercial and public galleries to sell primarily decorative works or host large blockbuster projections of works known to all, contemporary visual artists also find themselves under pressure to continue working in a way that will ensure their work makes it into the hearts and homes of art buyers. However, to do so, limits the growth of the artist, the consumer and arts and culture scene as a whole.

In her article, The Contemporary Dematerialization of Art, Laura Napier proposes the need to revisit the dematerialization strategies of the 1960's while also highlighting how problematic this becomes for artists to sustain themselves as artists. Of course there is not one answer on how artists can etch out sustainable lives while helping to build more sustainable worlds, but what would it look like if guaranteed basic income offered the key for creatives to relinquish our highly commodified practices to arrive at service based actions or revisit relational aesthetics and other methods of dematerialization? Would this sort of program offer us a way to become valuable volunteers or activists of change in a way that reflected our artistic research and the needs of society or ecology?

For example, Pakistan, during the COVID virus crisis, has found a way to get their labour force back to work in a safe way while also being a service to their broader communities and country. In Germany, if you are an artist and "have a degree from an art school you are officially deemed a “professional” artist and qualify to receive assistance from the state. This mentality has contributed to Berlin and other cities becoming major cultural centres and the development of funding and programs that help artists and their community flourish, even during times of pandemics, despite the loss of gig economies and the cancellation of many annual events and exhibitions. (Brown, 2020)

If you are an artist who has been able to develop a sustainable praxis without putting an abundance of "things" into the world, please post below to let others know how we can all move forward in a more sustainable ways for the earth we share.

Come Help UN/make the Horizon in a Quest Art Master Class on May 14th and 15th.

Have you ever wondered how the tradition of landscape painting developed so strongly in Canada when so much of the art world still considers portraits and the figurative to be the ultimate discipline? Interestingly enough, landscape paintings in Europe started as a way of communicating the class, leisure and wealth of the upper class! This picture below shows us a portrait of a recently married couple, who by coming together have secured a larger parcel of land through their union. Still holding the recently signed marriage contract, land often used to serve as a bride's dowry, despite her not being able to be a landowner as part of the union. These patriarchal practices are just one of the many laws that disempowered women and still points to gender inequities today.

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, Sir Thomas Gainsborough, 1727–1788

If we look at how landscape painting got its footing in North America, it actually started off as a way of colonial, imperial forces mapping geographies from which to extract resources, expand trade routes and establish settlements that were well situated to defend territories, many of which still remain unceded today. So what can artists do to help undo the colonial gaze that led to the unjust accumulation and devastation of land that gradually replaced respectful relations between Indigenous populations and the earliest of settlers?

In thinking about how images can either perpetuate or disrupt the colonial, industrial and capitalist gaze, I have teamed up with Quest Art to offer another experimental workshop around methods of unmaking. Where deconstructing, abstracting, inverting, disrupting, covering, erasing, inserting or layering, this MASTER CLASS will have you thinking more about how to drop the gaze and come more into relation with your immediate environment today.

To read a more indepth outline of the course and register for you spot, visit EVENTBRITE.

LUSH Artist Talk Tomorrow at Noon

If you haven't made it to Simcoe County's most recent art gallery, perhaps this is the month to do it. Manifested by Jeannette Luchese, Be Contemporary is both a commercial and experimental space that recognizes the importance of art to the lives of all as well as the importance of opportunities to show for artists.

Running until September 4th, the current shows feature new works by Marlene Hilton Moore and myself, as well as a delightful series of collages by Regina Williams.

Located in the main gallery, LUSH: Fabrications in Yarn and Fabric, is an installation based exhibit that works at the intersections of textiles, photography and architecture to celebrate the embodied knowledge women carry as assemblers of materials and form as well as investigate how textiles work to sculpt or prescribe one's roles and identity within a given culture.

A feast for the eyes from multiple vantage points, Marlene Hilton Moore’s photographic work, combined with sculpture, architecture, and artifacts, develops narratives based upon a woman, a dress, and a place. Visually weaving together encoded cultural messages that allude to personal social histories, Marlene brings together two series of work to create a continuum of her investigation into identify formation. Juxtaposing a pure white mannequin wearing an intensely embroidered dress with richly textured objects and a vivid historic interior from her body of work entitled Inside My Skin, Hilton Moore’s gallery installation is paired with photographs of Peonia Beauty, a series of images that reveal a dress of black taffeta peonies, a quixotic young woman, and textures of deteriorating architecture. While moving in and out of Marlene’s photos into the physical realm of the artist’s carefully hand-crafted objects and attire, Hilton Moore’s quotidian reality expands into a dance of authenticity and vision.

Across the room from Hilton Moore’s arrangement of sculptures and photos is the most recent compilation of my entanglements, all created from the unmaking of those that came before them. Working much more intentionally with the recycled yarn in conjunction with thrift store porcelain figurines, each work points to how materials in their various forms have a way of controlling, consuming, commodifying, and curating bodies in and out of cultural norms. Often covering much of the figurine’s white surfaces and heads that carry forward Euro-centric and patriarchal notions of femininity, beauty, etiquette and class, I imagined the word LUSH to also express how much of Western Culture is drunk from the excess consumption of material goods, incessantly branded and touted, disseminated and discarded as a result of global, industrial, capitalist systems of exchange.

Please join us for an artist talk tomorrow at noon with the MacLaren Art Centre, or visit the gallery from 12 - 5, Wednesdays thru Saturday, 7869 Yonge Street, Innisfil Ontario Canada, L9s 1K8.