behind the sign
looking through dirty glass, looking through the sign,
looking over the water, seeing towers
by Marja-Leena
by Marja-Leena outside, inside
looking at spring, outside the patio door
inside the solarium, waiting to summer outside
by Marja-Leena Ihaya and Chang at RAG
Another intriguing exhibition opening this week!
Richmond Art Gallery presents two exhibitions that explore what it means to be a citizen in a global world where identities are ever-changing and fluid.
Amy Chang: Donated Organ and Tomoyo Ihaya: Water, Rice and Bowl
Exhibit Dates: April 26 – June 1, 2008
Opening reception Friday, April 25, 6:30 – 9:30pm.
Artist Talk: Saturday, May 24, 2pm
Curator Talk & Tour: Thursday, May 1, 6:30pm
This exhibition is accompanied by a RAG publication by Ann Rosenberg
Amy Chang, Organ
Tomoyo Ihaya, Sketches for Water, Rice and Bowl
Amy Chang’s Donated Organ and Tomoyo Ihaya’s Water, Rice and Bowl consider the meaning of global citizenship in a world where elements of basic human survival have become commodities. Chang’s ceramic works take the shape of severed human organs, and call to mind the anonymous and often destitute people who are preyed upon to supply the constant demand for organ transplants. The ceramic organs are also signifiers of life and its cycle, and the tubes that connect some of the organs point to the interconnectedness of human lives. Ihaya’s combination of mixed media works and a documentary film show how water is collected drip by drip, and used in daily rituals such as cooking and washing by families in Ladakh, India. This process of collecting water and its thrifty usage are a reminder of the preciousness of water, which is an essential resource that is increasingly becoming scarce these days.
Amy Chang received a Bachelor of Business in Taiwan in 1980. She found a passion for art while working for the Cloisonné Company for eight years, and studied ceramics in a private pottery studio. She received a Diploma of Studio Art from Capilano College in 2003, and completed a BFA from Emily Carr Institute in 2007.
Tomoyo Ihaya received a BA in German Literature at Rikkyo University before attending Mount Allison University’s Fine Arts Program. She received an MFA at the University of Alberta in 2002. She has shown internationally for a decade and has received numerous awards, grants, and residencies. Her work is in collections in Canada, the United States, Italy and Thailand.
Tomoyo and I have known each other many years. With her busy exhibition schedule, she’s been featured in these pages several times.
by Marja-Leena bruised
He brought me some branches of magnolia
bruised by the fall, the snow and the frost.
Sitting in a vase near a sunny window, opening
ephemeral beauty, like ancient silk.
by Marja-Leena Michiko Suzuki exhibition
An exciting exhibition featuring the printmaking of Michiko Suzuki is coming up this week!
Michiko Suzuki: Floating World 1 (Time Like Air)
FLOATING WORLD
April 24th to May 24th, 2008
Opening reception Thursday, April 24th, 6 – 8:00 pm
Bellevue Gallery
2475 Bellevue Avenue, West Vancouver, BC
These excerpts from the invitation brochure say it best:
Michiko Suzuki is a Tokyo based artist active in Japan since 1975. In 2002, she was invited as a visiting artist in the Printmaking department at the University of Alberta, and then in 2003 was invited as the first artist-residence in the printmaking department of Capilano College, N.Vancouver, BC. There she worked on a collaboration with printmaking faculty Wayne Eastcott. They exhibited the results in 2003, 2005, and 2006 in Tokyo, Japan and Vancouver, Canada.
She immigrated to Canada in 2006 (permanent residence status) and is living and working in Greater Vancouver. This is her first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery in Canada.
This exhibition’s title “Floating world” comes from the Japanese UKIYO-E (referring to Japanese traditional wood cuts). It means “Picture of the present”. UKIYO literally translates as, “Floating world”. Therefore, the theme is “Present life looks like a transient dream.”
Suzuki’s work is based on her perception of a world in which the sense of space and distance is shrinking, not only in the physical world but also in terms of the mental space that people tend to inhabit in a fast-paced urban society. She considers that the demands of contemporary life leave too little space for meditation, or the possibility of contemplating the present moment, resulting in humans being out of balance. As a response to this condition Suzuki incorporates empty space within much of her recent works. (Richard Noyce)
For that reason, Suzuki composes works that include elements of the past, present and future. She also employs another dimension (surreal image) that fits well with her work’s space, and deals with the connection between Reality and Illusion.
Michiko Suzuki: I Am Suddenly Transported Here
More examples of Michiko’s work may be seen on the Bellevue Gallery site under ‘Gallery Artists’.
Michiko is a friend and a fellow artist working in the same printmaking studio. She has been a subject of several blogposts here regarding her collaborations with Wayne Eastcott:
August 2004
October 2005
September 2006
October 2006
by Marja-Leena snow in April
We were shocked last night to receive hail and dry pellets of snow, then wet snow for about four or five hours. A few stunning flashes of lightning highlit the whiteness into a ghostlike eery world. Then it all froze overnight.
This morning we see the heavy weight of the snow has spread open many shrubs, some of them in flower like the camellias and the red rhododendron. Large cedar branches are leaning down to the ground and I see some have split. Most sadly, a huge branch has broken off in the center of our magnificent magnolia tree, just beginning to bloom. This is situated along the back border of our yard, lined with trees and so very private. Now there’s a huge gap and we can see the neighbours. I grieve.
I’m almost afraid to go outside to check the damage to the tulips and other new growth in the garden. In the 35 years we’ve lived in Vancouver, I don’t remember ever having had snow in April that stayed on the ground. And we may be getting more this weekend. I love snow but not in April.
Added later: Here’s a photo of a bruised magnolia flower, picked off the broken branch on the ground.
by Marja-Leena snow artist
It seems that winter, even in mid-April, is still hovering here on the westcoast, for we are in for some freezing temperatures and snow this weekend. It’s been the coldest spring since 1969 and our farmers are worried.
But this inspiring story about a snow artist in northern Finland cheers me.
Artist and University of Lapland Professor of Art Education Timo Jokela, 52, lives off snow and ice.
For Jokela, snow is a muse, a source of endless inspiration to his artistic imagination. “Free material.” Jokela sculpts, saws, and moulds snow and ice. His studios are anywhere in the world, on the fells of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, and most recently in the Austrian Alps, where he was invited by Salzburg’s Kunsthaus Nexus to create a snow installation. Winter art is a budding Finnish export item. Art museums from different continents have placed orders with Jokela at an increasing pace for ice and snow sculptures.
Photo: Harri Nurminen for Helsingin Sanomat
But the most important thing for the artist[…] is to examine and create winter art as part of the psychosocial well-being of the world’s children. This winter Jokela travelled to the village of Lovozero on the Kola Peninsula, in Northern Russia, where along with his students and the local village schoolchildren he created an enormous snow-park, complete with a herd of grazing reindeer moulded from the snow.
This was a part of a larger Arctic Children project. I also love Jokela’s other beautiful environmental art installations on the spare northern land, so dramatic and making me think that he may be the north Finnish version of Andy Goldsworthy.
by Marja-Leena urban wildlife
I had some excitement at the home front this afternoon. I was in the kitchen about to prepare some vegetables when I spotted some kind of bushy furry creature crawling along the garage roof. I couldn’t believe my eyes – a raccoon! It sauntered up to and along the edge of the solarium glass, a rather treacherously steep and slippery path. A couple of crows came by to raucously scold it while I dashed for the camera.
I took numerous photos of its adventure from indoors, but there was too much reflection for good pictures. Once it hit the end of the line, I was able to go out on the deck and capture a few better shots like this one. I was feeling sorry for it then as it was trying to find a way down or up, a bit nervous seeing me. When I went back inside it returned the way it came, going around to the far side of the garage from where it made a leap to the woodshed roof and from there down into the neighbour’s garden.
We haven’t seen too many raccoons around for some years so they must be coming back again. Did I ever tell you about the mother raccoon that spent the winter in our attic during our renovations and had a baby there? Our youngest was a baby then too, and the two would set each other off with their crying.
by Marja-Leena immigrants’ journeys
Not too long ago I wrote about an historical photo exhibition of British Columbia’s Finnish settlers. How interesting then to find an article on the weekend about the story of one Finnish family’s experience immigrating and settling here! I recognized one or two of the photos (there are several in the print version) that was also in the exhibition.
This is just one of many moving personal histories in a series called An immigrant’s journey: 150 years of newcomers to B.C.** which is being published by The Vancouver Sun as part of a celebration of our province’s 150th anniversary of joining the Confederation, the sixth province to do so. And a celebration of our diversity.
Amongst the history articles, Stephen Hume, my favourite writer in the Sun, has written a monumental series on explorer Simon Fraser**. I see the website also has some videos that look very interesting that I must look at. It’s wonderful to have it all together here, congratulations to the Sun for this!
UPDATE April 28, 2008: I just learned about this exhibition on the same theme: Free Spirit: Stories of You, Me and BC** is a major feature exhibition at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, BC’s capital. We’ll have to see this the next time we go visit!
** links have since expired and have been removed
by Marja-Leena sanding disk
Boogie Street’s Mr Zip, an artist and blog pal in the UK, wrote this on my previous post called rust circle:
Lovely piece of metal, and I can understand why you’ve kept it for so long. When at university I picked up a sanding disk with black patches and scraps of paint attached, which I found similarly attractive, and it’s been hanging on my studio wall ever since. I know it can be used in an artwork somehow, but have yet to find the right way. Meanwhile, I just enjoy it for its own sake.
And he kindly offered these images to me to put up here. Aren’t they gorgeous?! I can just imagine a future archaeologist excited by finds like ours.
Circles, especially man-made ones, have recently figured in some of my work, so maybe I was led to rediscovering my long-saved rust circle…. and receiving another from a reader! Anyone else have similar weathered treasures?