The featured exhibit runs December 1 – 31, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.
Artist Reception: December 9 at 2PM.
Artist: D.N.E.
Artist Statement:
I find visualizing the space a show is going to inhabit before commencing its physical manifestation really heightens my clarity and intuition regarding it. In the case of the Metro Gallery, there are two walls parallel from one another. This has directly inspired ‘Excavation/Flammable, We are All!’. Side Flammable is a wall covered in a dozens of fires ranging in size from 3”x 5” to 40” x 60”. Side Excavation ranges from 6” x 9” to 20” x 72” and also contains new works from my ongoing ‘Intent is Power’ series. Both walls are unified by two things: sigils and a poem written specifically for this purpose- unification. Sigils alone are something that could warrant much elaboration (see website)- they are vitalizing to my process. All I will say on that front is that a sigil is a consciously created symbol that works subconsciously and that it was an eureka moment for me to realize the power added to my art when I moved them from years of notebook after notebook into a visual ritual practice; something in which I cannot unsee.
Excavation works are the onset of another ongoing series. In these the sigils are far less pronounced, instead building up to create a layered, textured background to the intuitive shapes presented. Each form is an aspect of self. I had a vision for an album cover for the 4 way split my main band plus one of my solo projects are collaborating on and it is this piece – Four Allied Forms – that realized this stream of more subtly shared sigil work. Drawing comparison to a series of mine from 2012 called ‘Portrait of a Shadow’ galvanized a more introspective meaning to this current work. For the most part the forms are stripped down to a near silhouette existence. They are but shadows on the wall, yet they bring awareness to the essence all the same, if not more powerfully from a subconscious standpoint. I find these works to be more personal.
The title ‘Flammable, We are All!’ was taken from a book of poetry I wrote in 2017. More recently this title was reused for a noise/drums album of another of my solo projects and I’d painted a fire for the cover. This was Flammable, We are All! I’. The next 16 (II – XVII) were graphite & pastel works for the artist editions and everything in this show is everything since. The spiritual and alchemical nature of fire is something that has long inspired me.
Flammable, We are All!
Flammable, We are All!
The torch is in your heart,
Gateway to intuition,
True seat of consciousness.
Thought laden analytical mind-
Turns to ash when centred
When connected to wisdom innate.
Excavated not created
It was already there
Resonances of emboldened insight-
A mirror.
Staring at yourself through every perception
Not every chord truck that of recognition
Yet it is you all the same.
The deepest recesses of the mind
presenting shadows in broad daylight
Gifting opportune lessons
if humble enough to take them
paired with an awareness for change
For the unfurling of what is already known
but long forgotten
Shed at birth to toil for
Past illusion and sleep.
Transformative assignment
One in which the objective was misplaced,
carried away by the river of Lethe
and found in the pool of memory.
Flammable, We are All!
Flames quenched in Mnemosyne
The deeper the excavation goes
The more unadulterated the fire.
D.N.E. is a multi-instrumental musician, artist, poet and writer whose work throughout all modes of expression encircles vivifying consciousness and the eternal transfiguration with intent to stimulate deeper awareness and strength as a path of self realization. Though having lived abroad for several years as a fresh adult, she was born, raised and long time resides in Edmonton.
