Ways of Dealing
In this process, I am both the instigator and the mitigator. I create challenges for myself, and I problem-solve for myself.
In the summer of 2019, I had the pleasure of being a featured artist at Galerie Marc Gosselin in his Programmation 2019. My exhibit Ways of Dealing was a sample collection of mixed media collage and digital collage work created between 2018 and 2019.
At its root, Ways of Dealing meditated on deconstruction, assembly and reconstruction, all as a means to make sense of and navigate my surrounding material world. I imagine these works as a “portrait of a process”. In this process, I am both the instigator and the mitigator. I create challenges for myself, and I problem-solve for myself. The beauty of collage is that preexisting forms, lines, colours and seemingly infinite possibilities guide me through my work. The collection features portals, pathways, thresholds and houses as well as the occasional figure, either an anonymous silhouette or an icon, like a mother or a tree.
Producing collages became a weekly practice if not a daily practice at the time, and each collage can transport me back to the mindset, the mood or even a conversation that surrounded its creation. These works embed and solidify a present moment into a past memory. Featured in the show was a Dream Log displayed on a pedestal, consisting of 45 collages. This smaller format book (handmade and gifted to me by a dear friend) became a place where I could create ongoing narratives through collage, pasting new and different collages back-to-back, on every page. The finished object burtsts open. The tactile proof of days gone by made me grieve its completion.
This might be where the name Ways of Dealing comes from. The way between problems and solutions is a path meant to be crossed many times, like a wandering walk or stubborn cycle. It’s the daily build-up of many highs and many lows – the evidence of sincere processing. This collection shows that at least in time, there are ways to deal.
