My show ‘Untethered/Southern Manitoba’ is on display at Gallery in the Park, Altona until July 29th, 2023. An hour and a half drive from Winnipeg, the gallery has a beautiful sculpture garden and picnic area, and is a short walk from downtown Altona. On the main floor you will find ‘Keeping time: The Art and Heritage of Mennonite Clocks’. On the second floor along with my exhibit you will find ceramic work by Jozanna Loewen, and paintings by Candace Propp.
Untethered is made possible by generous funding from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council.
‘Untethered/Southern Manitoba’ features a series of large photographic and digitally altered landscapes, as well as large scale self portraits juxaposed with small altered polaroid prints on paper. In addition to the works on the wall viewers will find video work created with footage from Southern Manitoba, primarily around Herdsman’s House in Neubergthal, as well as an installation piece made with a hand-knit floor to ceiling red net. Caught up inside the net are altered/embroidered photographs on rag paper of biological family, adopted family photos, childhood memories, artifacts, and other ephemera including adoption correspondence, family letters, and journal entries.
As a photo-based, mixed-media artist, I explore themes of grief, loss, and adoption trauma, initially inspired by my mother's stroke and subsequent death. My initial body of work, ‘The Grief Project’, was largely influenced by my career as a dancer and choreographer; this connection created the need to include moving images into my work. In 2021, with support from the Manitoba Arts Council, I participated in a self-directed residency at Gull Lake, Manitoba, the location of my childhood cottage. While there, I began to experiment with video and sound to complement my still works on paper, wood, and canvas. Working at Gull Lake unearthed deeply emotional memories of childhood, and inspired ‘Untethered, a new body of work focusing on my personal experiences as an adoptee, questions around adoption loss, place, belonging, identity, and lack of identity.
As an adoptee I have no knowledge of my heritage, culture, or place. In researching adoption trauma, or the ‘primal wound’, the similarities between this and grief caused by death was striking. In this new body of work I will boldly insinuate myself into landscapes that I feel a strong connection to. Without being limited or confined by where I am from biologically, I have the freedom to choose my place, and have empowered myself in a situation that has historically come with very little power or agency. Having spent a great deal of time at, and developing a deep connection to, the Herdsman House artist retreat in Neubergthal, the first iteration of this new body of work features the historic Herdsman’s House, and Southern Manitoba landscape.