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Reviews / Essays / ... | |
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Sister ~ Family ~ Home, 1998 Artists Jason Avery, Fiona Kinsella and Paul Lisson. Burlington Art Centre Curated by Dawn Beatty By Robert Clark Yates A publication produced for an exhibtion at the Burlington Art Centre There are two directions. All points of the compass are one. The needle spins like the hands of a clock out into the world and its many landscapes. No matter which way you face when you leave the North Pole, you move toward the south. The other direction is inward, to the place your eyeballs always look away from. The pointing needle in this case goes beneath the skin, below appearances and under understanding. Nothing says the skull must remain hidden forever. What is concealed will come to light. What is hidden will be found. You can see that invisibility grows. The belly expands. The egg cracks. The doll will twist and open. Something is coming into being. Containment is surrounded by the dance macabre, and labour begins. This gift, a mother, a sister. Exquisite womanhood, beyond the call of sex, beyond the masked flesh of dolls, my ken, my Barbie, my Kachina, my Babushka. Oh mystery, these open legs, these contractions, this birth and this expanding universe. What landscapes are longed for? What horizons are absent? Is there an out-of-doors? Understand that this is inside. But we are beyond wombs, beyond this side of locked doors, beyond the inside of cabinets, beyond the contents of dusty medical books or letters from another time and place which always wait in coffee-stained, post-marked envelopes, safe in cedar chests. This is under the skin, down to the bone, right to the very marrow of the present. Smiling teeth not covered by frowning lips and questioning flesh. Scratches on bones. A hatchet in the back of a bug. A ritual ring on your finger. The dark habit of a crow. Beyond memory and beyond hope, Now is to be lived. Who can see our cup overfloweth? Who can interpret a schematic diagram of a birth and the loss of containment? I smell incense. For the time being, we're still free from the grave family urn. Hold me. Dust to dust, this world of things and endless cleaning. Prescriptions for betterment. A collection of days. Each one labelled and arranged in chronological order. When selected fragments of our universe are gathered into tidy collections, they are no more Victorian than skulls are Medieval. The time is Now, with Once holding one hand and Not-Yet holding the other. Only Now is real. The two Not-Nows we stand between are imaginary. Sing to me and I will understand beginning and ending. I know the tune, an umbilical chord in a minor key. Listen. Head-bone connected to the: neck-bone. Neck-bone connected to the: back-bone. O, every song has limits. Each has a beginning. Back-bone connected to the: hip-bone. Hip-bone connected to the: leg-bone. O hear the word of this world without end, amen. I will not fall asleep if you sing to me. No blood, no guts, no vomit. Just them bones, them bones, them dry bones. Bones on a clean red background. Background like a maple in October, the red behind the doilies of my grinning valentine, my collection and my gift. The skeleton of a word and a name, the skeleton of a stick, the skeleton of a stone. The skull of a sister, the exposed backbone of a family, the naked rib-cage of a home. Look. This universe, with the delicate lace of its galaxies, the ritual dance of its solar systems, the fearless masks of its comets: it is as scattered and fragmented as a drop of your blood screaming under a microscope. What distant horizons are these---looking inward? Who can resist the gravity of the situation? Can we hang pictures on its walls? Are we to call the Black Hole home? When the nearness itself draws near (which is to say, when it draws nearer), then I can say I am contained. It doesn't get much nearer than this. The infinite distance of the farthest star rests safely here on the back of my eyeballs---so close, so small, so safe. The stillness of the dance. Song's end. A closed book and now. The doll opens. A voice inside calls again for more room. You can't really say it is all that crowded with one inside the other. You in me and me in you. We must be kind to each other. One of us is the world. by Robert Clark Yates |
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The New Gallery-07 S. Knelman Where Magazine-07 J. Hilliker Hamilton Spectator-07 R. Haggo Hamilton Magazine-07 T. Foss Macdonald Stewart Art Centre-07 J. Nasby No. 56 Number Magazine-06 J. Hamilton Nashville Scene-06 D. Maddox Latcham Gallery-06 M.Broadhurst Nashville Scene-06 D. Maddox J. Marx Cambridge Galleries-06 I. Jurakic Hamilton Spectator-05 R. Haggo Nashville Scene - 05 D. Maddox Hamilton Spectator-04 E. Hujer Artichoke, Kohli & Brace VIEW Magazine J. Deal Women's Post K. Somers Sieved.com Peter Paper Wait - Ace Art D. Lemieux The Latcham Gallery M.Broadhurst Hamilton Spectator J.Mahoney Sister ~ Family ~ Home R. C. Yates ID Magazine P. Molotov Scene S. Curtis-Norcross Hamilton Spectator J. Mahoney VIEW Magazine C. J. Klaassen The Silhouette H. Ormerod Galerie Sans Nom G. Leblanc Hamilton Spectator J. Mahoney Hamilton Spectator J. Mahoney |