“e dot tree dot” by K.I.A. , is 84” x 60”
-black/gold/silver oilstick on scratched and scored aluminum.
Whenever I see a birch forest, the patterns of white and black feel like an encoded message being sent by the earth. So I took a poem by e.e. cummings “when by now and tree by leaf”, translated it into the dots and dashes of Morse code, and overlayed and image of a birch forest with it. I then translated key nouns from the poem (i.e. “snow”) into secretarial shorthand symbols for the cursive part of the painting.
The lines that make up the drawing are more than just decorative or structural -- they are themselves information. (The broader implication: behind everything we see there is a higher, or at least different, order of reality.) They are palimpsests — information layered on information.
General Stealth Car River 84 x 60”, oilstick on aluminum by K.I.A.
Tom Thomson x Emily Carr ÷ General Idea x Agnes Martin = genetically modified Canadian art. Taking the forests of Thomson and splicing them with organic shapes of Carr over the t.v. bands of General Idea, and beneath the minimalist lines of Martin.
There is a horizontal, as well as a vertical, tracking of light as the aluminum reflects with movement and illumination, contrasting the velvety matte of the oilstick.
Argent Silk Armor 84 x 60 x 5"” oilstick on faceted aluminum
A palimpsest— layers of textile shapes from Japan, Africa, Victorian era Europe, and a North American Indigenous breastplate, overlayed. The bends in the aluminum are the folds used on a kimono for storing.
