Cut out to be artists
“There’s a certain violence in attacking the foundations of one’s complacency,” says Jody Joseph.
She’s talking about art. And she’s referring to life.
Joseph’s recent work is on show in Ripped, Cut & Drawn, an exhibition in the main gallery at Gallery on the Bay.
She’s joined by Chelo Sebastian in the studio gallery.
Both artists are well established, live locally and exhibit in Ontario and internationally.
Both have been working with collage.
Joseph, an American, settled in Dundas about 15 years ago. She has always “painted from observation.” That is how she describes her striking interior and exterior views painted in a loosely representational style.
She continues to paint. But she has expanded her repertoire.
On immigrating to Canada, she began a new life. And embraced collage.
Modern artists took to collage about a hundred years ago in their search for new materials and new ways of doing things. Collage, the art of cutting, ripping, arranging, rearranging and recycling, fit the bill.
For Joseph, collage is “a discovery waiting to happen,” she says. “I turn to collage when I’m trying to give form to feeling — the less rational, visceral, disordered, freely associated reactions to my world.”
All Over Space, big and colourful, radiates joy. It works on two levels.
First, from a distance we see a dynamic abstract composition. Loose pink and red shapes compete with blue, green and grey ones. Some shapes are geometrically inclined, others more organic and sinuous. Drawn scribbled lines hold shapes together, but other lines barely hang on to them.
Second, as we get closer, we note how the subtly textured surface was put together.
Some of the shapes are painted, others are painted and layered over with torn paper, or paper shapes are covered with paint.
Some of the layers are peeled back to reveal an under layer.
Formed and Reformed gives us a more ordered composition. A grid pattern dominates the centre. The grid recalls a patchwork quilt of coloured squares or a Paul Klee painting.
Joseph fights against any straight lines by overlapping, layering and peeling papers to emphasize rough edges.
Through her collages Joseph celebrates her new life. “The pieces fit, a new life has taken root and flourished.”
Sebastian, too, delights in pieces fitting. Working on a collage is like solving a puzzle.
The Hamilton artist has always gravitated toward watercolour, a demanding medium. In her exhibition, she has built up collages from cut-up watercolour paintings, pastel and ink.
“I start with a watercolour of the subject and I cut it up,” she says. “Then I put it together again on another paper.
“I like puzzles. I try to suggest movement and I love the excitement of discovery when it works.”
Sebastian takes her inspiration from music, both opera and jazz. In Say it With Flowers, layered floral shapes rise and fall, cluster together and f all apart, dancing to the rhythm of remembered tunes.