I am delighted to have two pieces, “Dual Citizen” and “Tenderly” for sale in Blueline Gallery’s upcoming The US Show. I shot both images in Stanley Park, British Columbia, last April. The show features art from immigrants to the U.S. If you’ve never been to this gallery, it’s worth the drive to old Roseville!
Artist Statement
Here is the artist statement that I created to accompany my two images to emphasize the show’s theme around art from immigrants:
My immediate family moved to Los Angeles from Edmonton, Alberta in 1980. Because the rest of my relations remain in Canada, I’ve spent the past almost 40 years traipsing back and forth, sporadically photographing along the way as I visited family in Ontario and British Columbia.
The bifurcation of my national loyalties, my families, my sense of sheer rootedness, is something I think most immigrants experience. For me, it was perhaps no more pronounced after my mother died last year. She wished my brother and I to divide up her earthly remains, as well as our father’s, between the U.S. and Canada — after all, they’d split their lives between both countries.
Sad and grieving, I welcomed the wet and cool weather of the Northwest, the source of these images. We headed to Stanley Park Pavilion, as the delicate raindrops landed on the nearby blooming daffodils. Nearby, the Harding Statue, the only one in British Columbia to feature an American president, caught my eye with its classically-draped female statues on either side, one representing the U.S. and the other Canada. My story, it seemed. In the rain, they looked like they were weeping.
As I stood in the drizzle, just as I did as a child in this rainy climate, I know that as much as I’ve gained from living in the U.S., I’ve also lost something along the way. It’s too primal to really identify clearly, but the wetness of the day seemed to capture it perfectly.
Technique
Technically, this was the first time I tried using Moab’s Entrada White Rag and I loved the fine-art quality. “Dual Citizen” especially turned out great with the mat blacks on my Canon printer. The hand-cut matting was really a challenge, but I am pleased with how the matting and framing turned out. and is going to run concurrently with three other shows.
