Local artist examines physical existence in the digital age
Local artist Mandy Espezel has invited the public to step into her art and explore what it means to exist physically in a digital age with her new exhibit.
“Pine Cones in Soft Mouths” opened Saturday at The Gallery at Casa and features six paintings, a wall painting, and then looser, less-defined paintings. The wall painting is connected through repetition of colour and imagery from the paintings.
“The work I’ve done on the wall pulls from the oil paintings,” Espezel said. “I’m using imagery that was developed through the kind of long, sustained process of developing the oil paintings, and bring it onto the wall of the gallery.”
As a result, the paintings become expanded by the additional paintings in an effort to draw the gallery space into the exhibit.
“I’m hoping the space of the gallery becomes part of the conversation of the paintings,” Espezel said.
“So when a viewer is in the space, they are looking at the paintings, but they are also moving within the space of painting. The gallery is kind of like a painting in itself, and we become participants instead of just viewers.” The oil paintings were started in 2014 and span two years of work for Espezel.
“They were all finished near the end of 2016,” Espezel said.
Although there is no overarching theme to the exhibit, Espezel said she hopes viewers will allow themselves to have a moment of presence, and to reflect on the experience of being in the gallery viewing the pieces.
But for the paintings themselves, there are present themes of how human beings relate to their physical selves as humanity moves into a more digital landscape.
“What are our relationships with our bodies at this stage of evolution?” she asked. “What are they potentially going to be in the future?”
She said an experience such as touch, which is an essential element today, might exist in a different form in the future.
“A lot of that meaning is really communicated through the titles of the work,” she said.
“I’m hoping there is a more complex, and multilayered relationship people can have with the paintings. They can reflect on them in a bodily, and visual way, and they can also reflect on the meaning of the titles of the work in relationship to the specific paintings, and to the room as a whole.”
“Pine Cones in Soft Mouths” runs until April 15.