ROCK PAPER CHARCOAL
Thesis exhibition - MFA 2019
Michael O’Brian Exhibition Commons at Emily Carr University
charcoal on paper, charcoal sticks, wood, branches
My thesis exhibition titled Rock Paper Charcoal brings together various narratives, such as processes of making (burning, drawing, pressing), the journeys from outside to inside, from the studio to the gallery, and the phenomenology of (geological) time and space. The latter speaks to layered experiences of places, where immobility is imposed: the rock wall and the studio wall, merged and transmitted into one: a viewer’s experience of the gallery space.
Drawing is found in large depictions of rock that undeniably pointed back to the maker and her traces. It is found in the subtle placement of charcoal sticks on a table, a design leading to drawing. My selection of artworks functions as a sequence, each part having the potential to explain the next one.
The charcoal dust is inevitable, flowing on every surface, its micro particles floating in the air until it settles. Charcoal is infectious, disguised in the gallery space through many appearances. The medium is present in its raw state as a display of charcoal sticks, the main ingredient to every one of my artworks and the starting point of every process. It is also trapped within the paper, resembling a fossil, an indexical record of movement through time.
The space is shared with Robin Gleason, a fellow MFA student I have been working closely with, outside collecting and making, as well as inside, building and planning. We treated the gallery space as an environment where our work could co-exist: the result being an installation where the line differentiating our work is blurred. It creates a tension that calls in question authorship: Who made what wasn’t specified on a label, a closer inspection of the work was required to access each artist’s narrative. This close proximity enhanced each others processes and time as main themes of both our installations.