Artwork by Series

Time curls in on itself and around itself with a sense of urgency that is invisible. Opportunity is given in its absence and in its space. Humans when faced with dark days can reach for interconnected structures that give them comfort and confidence. There are subtle nuances and intricacies that exist in the gaps between people, emotions and ideas. Everything is fundamentally interdependent; plants, earth, wildlife and people. A tendril on a pea plant reaches for support as it grows, trying to connect for strength and support.  If it does not find support, it curls into itself, and disconnects, falling to the ground.  It cannot use itself as a support structure which is often the same for humans. We need others. The need of being supported, held, comforted and cared for is ever present in the world in which we live.

If time could stretch like a tendril on a vine we could suspend that last moment, but we never know when that last moment will happen. Sometimes the gap between what society could be and what can happen is as wide as the gap between a young tendril and a support structure. What is possible can exceed individual grasp, like climate change, homelessness, poverty or the economy. We can experience dark days by reaching too far on our own, and suffer a graceless fall like a tendril curled around itself on the ground, alone and unsupported. We continue to reach out to stretch our potential and interconnect to solve individual needs as well as global issues with endurance similar to a tendril.

Change occurs through deep time when life hangs like a question mark, fragile and always changing.  A moment in time can impact this planet, but it can also take years and decades to notice the change. Transformation is a process within human existence and within the ecosystems on the earth that allows us to live in the continuous present as we know we will not be the same person or planet tomorrow that we were today. The arithmetic of life can be looked at as continuous subtraction or as continuous transformation. When parts of our life and the earth run thin like the transparent chrysalis of a butterfly there is room for transformation, change, growth and movement.

We thought the environment was frozen in time. It is now a slow emergency. Nature measures time in epochs, eras, eons; it is not based on a human construct of days or years. Humans trespass without notice on nature’s time scale but have altered deep time. Our trespassing renders a lasting impact, stripping mother earth, leaving her vulnerable and weak. We were complacent thinking we had the answers and believing that tomorrow is always promised. Did we even really try? The eternal seconds of our nascent attempts to address climate change may be too late. The regrets will be carried by the future generations comparing what we could have done with what actually occurred.

Time is eternal and everything is gradually covered by the earth.

Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, Saskatoon, SK 2023

Weyburn Art Gallery, Weyburn, SK 2023

Vulkano Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2022

Did we really even try??

We thought the environment was frozen in time. It is now a slow emergency. Nature measures time in epochs, eras, eons; it is not based on a human construct of days or years. Humans trespass without notice on nature’s time scale but have altered deep time. Our trespassing renders a lasting impact, stripping mother earth, leaving her vulnerable and weak. We were complacent thinking we had the answers and believing that tomorrow is always promised. Did we even really try? The eternal seconds of our nascent attempts to address climate change may be too late. The regrets will be carried by the future generations comparing what we could have done with what actually occurred. Time is eternal and everything is gradually covered by the earth.

Unyielding Earth - Espernato Gallery,
Markham, ON 2022 (group exhibition)

Snelgroave Gallery, UofS, Saskatoon (group exhibition)

Momentum, The Gallery Frances Morrison (group exhibition)

Tread softly on the earth as it is replete with delicate spaces. The marks made on the earth and others can be as soft and delicate as calligraphy or as violent as a strip mine. When we see each blade of grass as something larger than ourselves, something that will outlast us, we will tread more softly. Treading softly is an ancestral practice. Looking at the living soil and the earth as a panorama of time and space that extends in all directions exposes how small we are compared to the incomprehensible size and scope of the planet’s history now impacted by each human. Never before have humans had such power to impact the planet.    

the silencing of
women is so loud

the silencing of women is so loud – Jasmin Thomas

The vacuum of silence exists in the moments when you are too busy, when you are trapped in it, making it impossible to be heard. The voice inside our heads is the only one loud enough, but we are unable to respond.  Silence pervades within a power struggle with self and self-worth. 

Women have learned to labour and to wait their turn in the long fade of time. Time passes at the same rate for men and women, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours in a day. Social change doesn’t move at the same pace for everyone. For some the movement and the movie is silent.  

When women are undervalued the currency of the collective is in jeopardy. Women must not live an individualistic life if they want to be heard, it is in collective numbers that there is a   voice.  The silt of tomorrow is created from the behaviours of today. When society silences you, it becomes internalized.  You begin to internalize it and accept it because everything sinks into the heart.

The continuous sounds of women’s silence is deafening. Each word spoken or not spoken has a weight, a volume that invades a space in the heart and mind. Women are silenced by men, by society, by other women and by the voices inside their heads. 

Côa Museum, Portugal 2023

Transformation is the deep time of things when life hangs like a question mark, fragile and always changing.  A single moment in time can determine a life, but it can also take years and decades to form a life. Transformation is a process within human existence. This process allows us to live in the continuous present as we know we will not be the same person tomorrow that we were today. The arithmetic of life can be looked at as continuous subtraction or as continuous transformation. When we die, there is a universe inside our head that evolved and changed as we experienced life.  When parts of our life run thin like the transparent chrysalis of a butterfly there is room for transformation, change, growth and movement.

Art Gallery of St Albert, St Albert, AB 2023

Gallery 501, Sherwood Park, AB 2023

Gallery 2, Grand Forks, BC 2022

Prairie Fusion, Portage la Prairie, MB 2021

Okotoks Art Gallery, Okotoks, AB 2022

Seymour Art Gallery, North Vancouver 2021


Okotoks Art Gallery, 2022

So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies
- Shakespeare – King Lear Act V : Scene III

Look how beautiful, glamourous, fun, happy, balanced, zen, successful, rich, valued…. I am.  Social media the gilded butterfly of our time, when “likes” became a plural noun. Only the best view, best composition, best “reflection” of who we are appears on social media and the “likes” do seem to matter, social media masquerades as objectivity. When does filter and fact become blurred? When does the footnote of a photo, become the subtitle and when is
it the script? Some efforts to make the perfect post takes it to the level of ridiculousness, “influencers in the wild”. Technically we could gild a butterfly and make it more beautiful than it already is but would it be worth the effort and the cost, if the original beauty is forever hidden.  Like a celebrity that no longer can just be a butterfly, the gilding limits their movement, weighs them down and sometimes crushes them. The heart and the thumbs up icons on social media have become the added gold. This gold can hold people down, limit their movements, decisions and ultimately drives much of the world we now live in.

Social media creates a fantasy world where people feel they can gild their own lives, creating exteriors making lives seem better, more exciting, more holistic, more beautiful than reality. Sometimes life is just living, no matter where you are. The groceries have to be purchased, the meals cooked, the clothing washed and the human body maintained, the simple act of sleeping must be done, none of these things can be gilded.

Okotoks Art Gallery, 2022

Banana Republic Factory Store, Sasaktoon, 2021

We all make a difference in this world, especially at a time like this. One person not following the isolation guidelines can cause a ripple in the world pond. One person affecting others they don’t even know. During lockdown, I created a “Pebble in a pond” silkscreen and added one colour a day to the image of the pond.

This is my piece to mark this time in world history, I figure it is better than a t-shirt saying, “I survived quarantine”.  T-shirts wear out and marks on the wall like a prisoner are sort of depressing, I wanted to do something permanent that had meaning. 
I silkscreened one colour a day for each day of isolation/quarantine/lock down.  Some of the lines in the piece are narrower than a pencil line. This has been an extremely difficult piece to make, technically and mentally.

I selected this image of a pond to create, because Covid19 was a pebble thrown into the pond, that is our world.  It has caused ripples that cross all countries, generations and social classes. No one is safe from the ripples. I made 12 of these pieces to mark the year that changed everything.

In the face of life’s challenges, it is sometimes hard to stay positive, see the light at the end of the tunnel and to feel grateful. The hedonic treadmill of life makes even the joy of getting through a difficult time short lived. The world moves at an alarming pace pushing gratitude and introspection to the side.

The root of the word gratitude is the Latin word gratia, meaning graciousness or gratefulness. A thankful appreciation for what we receive inspires gratitude.  It allows people to acknowledge the source of goodness in their lives, which usually lies outside of us. Gratitude allows us to connect to others and to something larger than ourselves.
 
We become so accustomed to the positive events happening each day in our lives that happiness becomes a moving target. If we stop taking for granted all that life has to offer, recognize how fortunate we are to be living in this time, we will be better prepared to work through the challenging times. There is strength in the foundation of gratitude.

Each flower is a symbol for something to be grateful for and each vessel has a hidden image at the bottom as often the unseen is as important as the seen. The thoughts we have inside our own head are as important as the ones we speak aloud.

Time is ever changing, uncontrollable, influential and affects everything on this planet. It is a personal measure with which we align ourselves with everything else; people, projects, landscape, climate, advancement, achievement, history.  The present is an elusive destination as the passing of each moment subtracts time from our lives. We can’t describe “now” because “now” is the past immediately after it arrives. This makes it very difficult to look at something now and predict accurately how it may grow in the future.

Time is an invisible cage that we are in, trying to regulate when we wake, eat and work. Despite this attempt, our circadian rhythms make decisions for us that ignore the construct of time, a communal creation of humans. Attitudes about time regulate life and rhythms of life regulate attitudes about time. In an era when the internet has perpetual daylight, it challenges our biological rhythms and attempts to quantify and understand time.

We strain towards the future to evaluate our own present. Time is our own personal system for keeping our memories straight. We have a retrospective view of our lives by which we judge ourselves, and which can lead to corresponding errors of anticipation as we attempt to predict our future. Time is really a reflection of what each person determines. Time’s effects are both visible and invisible, felt and not felt. Events are triggered by other events, often not by time. 

Time gains its value in its infinitude. Time never ends, it never began. No clock started at the moment life began and no clock will stop if life on earth stopped. Each year is one trip around the sun. Thousands of futures are possible in that time frame. One split second can decide an outcome. Time is a rigid bonelike structure, fossilizing the future.

It is about the simplicity of childhood, how thoughts are only about today and not focused on tomorrow, about the rewards of simplicity and living in the moment for a time, and how children can suspend time, place and space to create worlds apart.  For a child, a day is a large fraction of their lifetime, whereas when we age, each day becomes a smaller and smaller fraction, causing us to rush and try to fit more into that limited splice of time.  The foreshortened view creates the perspective that the front of the piece is our childhood, where the object of our focus takes up the whole frame of reference, and the further we venture in our lives, objects that once took up our whole interest become smaller and less significant. 

Ottawa School of Art, 2018

Hague Gallery, 2018

Toronto

Vancouver

Saskatoon,

BEST IN SHOW

The touching through handwriting, pen and paper across a distance,
the effort to write, enclose a letter and mail it makes it a cherished object,
a special gift, to be held with a type of reverence.

Hiraeth (pronounced [hiraɪ̯θ][1])

Hiraeth is a longing for the homeland, but it is not mere homesickness. It is the bond felt for one’s home country when away from it. It can also be an intense longing for a home you can’t return to, or the sense of despair for not being able to connect to a home. Current events in Canada today, namely the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Refugee Crisis, created the flashpoint of creation for these hand-made parcels.

This time in history is characterized by making split second decisions on everything from people to products. With the swipe of a finger, we can dismiss something as unwanted. The Goat’s Beard weed is beautiful, symmetrical and delicate; we dismiss it as a weed. If we did not know it was a weed, would we think it is beautiful and cherish it? Context is Everything. If we didn’t have so many societal influences would we accept everyone for who they are rather than make decisions influenced by society?

Plants become weeds when they obstruct our plans, or our tidy maps of the world. A weed is “a plant in the wrong place.” Richard Mabey

Estevan Art Gallery and Museum - 2020
Curated by Amber Andersen

Worksfest, Edmonton, AB (6 locations)- 2020

Guelph Museums, Art Activisn and Truth, Guelph, ON - 2019

The Ladies Room, Jen Tough Gallery, San Francisco, CA - 2019
Curated by Danielle Krysha
Participation made possible through Creative Saskatchewan's Market Travel Grant Program

Museum of Printing (with Boston Printmakers), Haverill, MA - 2019

#bejane, Vienna, Austria - 2019

Breaching Margins, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI, USA - 2019

Crafted Vancouver, On the Same Page: Transforming Paper - Cityscape Arts Centre - North Vancouver- 2019
Curated by Rachel Ashe and Connie Sabo

Print in Place - Gallery Steel Rooms, Briggs, North Lincolnshire, UK 2019
Curated by Linda Ingham

Leighton Arts Centre, Caglary, AB - 2019
Participation made possible through Creative Saskatchewan's Market Travel Grant Program

Southern Graphics Council International (with Boston Printmakers), Dallas TX - 2019

Women's Art Museum of Canada- Edmonton, AB - 2018

Dimensions Touring Exhibition, Saskatchewan Craft Council, 2017-18

Her installation at this year’s show addresses an important, if publicly under-acknowledged environmental catastrophe. The loss of bees through colony collapse, disease and habitat degradation is biologically significant, the slow emergency of her title.

It’s a theme explored in other installations she has done. Here, Martin has crafted clear rectangular boxes stacked in varying heights, mimicking beehives in an apiary. Connected by steel rods, they are heaped with interlinked white hexagonal clay pieces, the shape replicating the tight cells of beeswax that make up the honeycomb. Some of these interlinked hexagons will be open to the elements, placed in trees around the installation.

Castlegar, BC 2016

Saskatoon, Nuit Blanche 2017

Have humans always searched for something to make them live longer?  The current health trends are herbal supplements,antioxidant foods or power foods that will cure us and keep us living long. “An Apple a Day keeps the doctor away” the familiar phrase, is a simple solution. The apple is probably the first nutritional and health advice we received from society, however there is no single food that has magical health properties. When did eating healthy become so much more complicated than just an apple a day?

We search for the answer to living longer and healthier. Many things can make us healthier but too much of anythingcan be a bad thing for the body, only the dose make the poison, only the dose makes the cure. The common phrase “Studies have found…” becomes confusing as studies contradict each other making it incredibly hard to make healthy decisions. A further challenge to making healthy eating choices is what is advice from sources telling us what “they” say, who are “they”?

Women's Art Museum of Canada, Edmonton 2016

Cube Gallery, Ottawa

Trust and integrity, the entire thing depends on their silence. Human emotions encapsulated in coloured
envelops, surrounding the thoughts on paper. So many people play a part. The rainbow of colour is the perfect vessel for all the things that humans feel.

Paper is organic covered in swirls and loops of the sender touched by the receiver. The touching through handwriting, pen and paper across a distance. The effort of write, enclose a letter and mail it makes it a cherished object, a special gift, to be held with a type of reverence.

The paraph, the flourish at the end of a signature marks each individual as unique.  Each flourish developed by the mark making. The signature, a security device, to keep things secure, to validity of documents when written.

Writing a letter is an investment in the person you are sending it to and in the system that delivers the mail.

The physical evidence of the letter can remain on this planet for years to come. The receiver gets it free of charge, no cost to come to your door, no commitment to opening it. If it is from someone that is unwanted by the receiver it can be left unopened, if it may be hurtful and may leave a mark.

Saskatchewan Craft Council 2018

CBC Saskatoon 2016

Castlegar, BC

Nidificate: to build a nest.

Nidification is a word that can be interpreted in many ways.

Ultimately humans are animals with basic primal needs, hard wired into us, that we can not change.

The act of “building a nest” is nothing but a normal human response to being alive. We want to feel safe and sheltered but alsohave the freedom to spread our wings and fly. We all build nests in different ways in our lives. No two nests are alike. Each is built from unique and individual parts. We use the resources available to build our nest and our shelter. The nest changes as we change and grow.

Peter Gray Museum, Galerias Vallarta, Vallarta Botanical Garde, Mexico 2016

Bellini Editions,
Vacouver 2016

Void Gallery 2016

Cube Gallery 2016

Print Art Research Center, Seoul, Korea 2017

Art Vancouver, Art Fair 2017

Cotuit Arts Center, Cotuit, MA 2017

As humans, as animals, we are here to procreate, just like the bees.  Humans fill the remainder with goals, dreams and experiences far beyond procreation.  Is denying procreation counter intuitive, or is it a survival strategy just like the 1000’s of bees in the hive that do not reproduce? For bees it is about survival of the species, for humans it is so much more than just survival. There exists a cycle where one goal ends and another begins, one dream dies and another begins. Is goal setting an instinctual process or is it programmed due to experiences? Are we forced biologically to look for a new way when the old one is either completed or impossible? One bee begins where another left off, moving on instinct, awareness so engrained that the same activities, reactions and cycles occur for centuries. 

CAVA Centre d'arts visuels de l'Alberta - Edmonton - 2020

Ottawa School of Art - Ottawa, ON
Travel supported with a grant from

Last Mountain Lake Cultural Centre, Regina Beach, SK - 2019
Travel supported with a grant from

Humboldt Art Gallery - Humboldt, SK - 2018

Strasbourg Museum - Strasbourg, SK - 2018

Art Gallery of Grande Prairie - Grande Prairie Art Gallery - 2018

Artpoint Gallery - Calgary, AB - 2018

Sask Craft Council - Saskatoon, SK- 2016

Okotoks Art Gallery - Okotoks, AB- 2015
Travel supported with a grant from

Kootenay Art Gallery - Castlegar, BC- 2015
Travel supported with a grant from

Never-Ending

This piece is made up of 15 Möbius strips (the never-ending band) of varying lengths that fit together as a sculpture. The life of an artist is never-ending because the artwork lives on when the artist dies. The piece was inspired by the death of a Canadian artist, Jeannie Thib. The Möbius strips are printed front and back with patterns that link together. Much of my recent work has to deal with links and interconnectedness.. 

Lamont Gallery, Exeter,New Hampshire 2016

St Thomas More Gallery, UofS Saskatoon, 2016

New York _International Print Center New York - 2015

Open Studio Contemporary Print Gll

Forest Gold

Inspired by the work Im Walde by Max Klinger, or being in a forest in the fall, makes me awe in the work of birds. Working on these prints while living in France, I watched an entire area of forest on the outskirts of Paris cleared. Each day more and more trees were felled. Birds that had so carefully built and planned their nests would have to start again. It was sad for me—as humans we dislike starting over and beginning again. A mining company in Saskatoon shut down and were throwing out old maps. The damage to the birds’ environment was inspiration for using the maps. Their topographical lines look like the rhythmic and intentional patterns of a bird nest.. 

Saskatchewan Arts Board - Permanent Collection (3 pieces) 2016

McMaster Museum of Art - Hamilton, ON 2016

Cube Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2014

TRU Gallery, Kamploops, BC, Canada
2014

Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA, USA
2015

We Are All Linked

We are all linked through relationships, the environment, our community and our past experiences. The interlinked hexagons are a symbol of this linkage, specifically the linkage to the environment, and more specifically bees and the recent problem of colony collapse The environment functions in a absolute way so that the loss of one link creates a huge problem. As wind and weather play a part in this exhibition one important link may break causing the entire cluster to fall to the ground. This is an ephemeral ever changing exhibition, each link is only as strong as the one next to it, the same as our environment.

Saskatoon -Meewasin Vallery Trail, from Mendel Art Gallery to Meewasin Valley Centre-2014/2015

Renzo PiRenzo Piano’s Auditorium Parco della Musicaano’s - Rome - 2014

Success is for Sale

To be an award winner takes money. Not just the horse races but also any sort of athletics or career. 
At the same time as thinking about buying success I was researching Affluenza for a different body of work and
found a connection between Affluenza and being “a shoe in”.  Those with money are buying their way in. Any success costs money,
many people never reach their goals or dreams because the financial cost is too much.

Success is for sale in this time in history, major athletes are buying various performance enhancing drugs, bribing judges,
quitting work to train full time, having personal trainers, massage therapists, spending money to be in the right circle
of friends and hiring psychologists, is just a small list of the costs of success. Being an Olympian or bringing home
an Olympic medal costs money. The more money spent, the more medals is often the story we hear in the news (Own the Podium program).

This series replicates a store shelf but “success” is for sale.  It is for sale for all those suffering from Affluenza,
Kalopsia, as well for parvenus and arrivists. The QR codes are real, as are the UPC codes. Scan the UPC code
and the product numbers spell “Success is for Sale”. Scan the QR codes and you are linked to a webpage
about the series and links to instances where “Success has been purchased”.

Touring 2014-18

Sask Craft Council 2014

Cat Tails/Tales

Monique Martin

Affluenza

The wanting of more and more is of epidemic proportions in this current time in history. A family’s debt load can become something that will never end, with spending in some countries at 160 percent of their wage. The abundance of choices in objects when shopping makes the Affluenza epidemic affect everyone, even a cautious consumer has the number of choices and range of styles which can be mind-boggling and time consuming. The choices and the multiples are explored in this piece with the paper doll having a very large selection of clothing, accessories and gadgets in her life. When do we know that we have enough?

Sandy Gallery, Portland, OR
USA 2015

UnivrTacoma, WA, USA 2015

Affinity Gallery, Saskatoon, SK
Canada 2014

Nesting

The nest is used as a metaphor for our own home in a number of ways: investments, capital, parents. Due to the fact that it takes money to have a home and raise a family, it is no surprise that people use the term “nest egg” to describe their investments and capital.  The common phrase empty nesters describes the situation when the children have left the home, and the parents now have more freedoms, either in terms of time or money. It may result in an improved financial situation due to the fact that there are no children to take care of. 

Nesting

The nest is used as a metaphor for our own home in a number of ways: investments, capital, parents. Due to the fact that it takes money to have a home and raise a family, it is no surprise that people use the term “nest egg” to describe their investments and capital.  The common phrase empty nesters describes the situation when the children have left the home, and the parents now have more freedoms, either in terms of time or money. It may result in an improved financial situation due to the fact that there are no children to take care of. 

Absolute Way of Things

Using bees as the subject, the works explore the fragile nature of existence, the interplay between humans and small creatures, and the communication patterns of our world. The large-scale prints explore the relationships within the hives and how those relationships mimic and contradict those in the human population. The cyclical nature of both bee and human populations is represented through the sequential nature of the artwork. The newly recognised loss of bee populations is commented on through the artwork as well as the historical links bees have with humans.

Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK 2015

Collaborations (Monique Martin and Cathryn Miller)

The Legend of the Red Thread

According to this myth, the gods tie an invisible red cord around the ankles of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way. Often, in Japanese culture, it is thought to be tied around the little finger The two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstances. This magical cord may stretch or tangle, but never break. This myth is similar to the Western concept of soulmate or a destined flame.

Mackenzie Art Gallery 2013

Barr Colony Cultural Ctr 2014

University of Lethbridge 2014

Woodstock Art Gallery 2014

The consumption of coffee, is it is ritual, a need, an outlet or an addiction? Whichever it is, it provides livelihood to 125 million human beings. Coffee is the second highest traded commodity second only to oil. The origin of coffee shops was the small cafes, where individuals met and exchanged ideas on topics such as science, business, writing and politics. The coffee shops catered to certain clientele. An exchange of ideas still occurs but in many coffee shops people are working on computers and possibly interacting with someone in another coffee shop in a different location in the world on topics like science, business, writing and politics. Maybe the world is just one big coffee shop.

OSAC Touring Exhibition 2016-2018

Cube Gallery, Ottawa 2015

Open Studio, Toronto 2014

Sculptural Nests

The nest is used as a metaphor for our own home in a number of ways: investments, capital, parents. Due to the fact that it takes money to have a home and raise a family, it is no surprise that people use the term “nest egg” to describe their investments and capital.  The common phrase empty nesters describes the situation when the children have left the home, and the parents now have more freedoms, either in terms of time or money. It may result in an improved financial situation due to the fact that there are no children to take care of. 

Regina Art Gallery 2015

Affinity Gallery, Potash Corp Children's Festival, Market Mall Studio 2012

Showcase of the Arts, Saskatoon 2013

Take Only Pictures!

This was a special exhibition for me as it was the first time that I had exhibited with my grown son Trint Thomas. He has an photographic eye that is special and unique. 

TearRoom Project

Civilizations have much in common throughout time. The Romans, the Greeks, Victorian England and people today practice catching tears. Whether it makes sense or not people do it. As humans attempt to deal with life’s challenges, symbols have been used to mark the emotions associated with those moments.  Grief is such an overpowering and overwhelming experience people created an entire tradition to trap the expulsion of the salty fluid from the lachrymal gland in an effort to help make sense of the moment causing the grief. 

Museum of Antiquities University of Saskatchewan March 2012

Selected pieces: Gallery, Frances Morrison Library, August 2012

Humboldt Museum and Art Gallery

Works in Progress

Rouge Gallery, 2011

Nest -Nest Egg - Empty Nest

The nest is used as a metaphor for our own home in a number of ways: investments, capital, parents. Due to the fact that it takes money to have a home and raise a family, it is no surprise that people use the term “nest egg” to describe their investments and capital.  The common phrase empty nesters describes the situation when the children have left the home, and the parents now have more freedoms, either in terms of time or money. It may result in an improved financial situation due to the fact that there are no children to take care of. 

Work in Progress

Affinity Gallery - Saskatchewan Craft Council - April 2012

To be showcased at Saskatchewan Children's Festival June 2012

Rouge Gallery - May/June 2012

Godfrey Dean Gallery - Yorkton, 2013

Ferry Building Gallery, North Vancouver

Meewasin Valley Center Gallery, 2013

Evince

This series is influenced by Shakespeare, Michel de Montaigne and each book page I have ever turned.  The turning of pages is important in this exhibition. With the new technology making the turning of pages obsolete, are libraries going to become obsolete as well. The silent study spaces, will they too become permanently silenced? Will the return slot lose the sound of sliding books forever?

The Gallery, Frances Morrison Library, Saskatoon, July 2012

Godfrey Dean Gallery - Yorkton, 2013

Tulip bulbs are used to represent an attendant spirit, a genius in this series; daimon.  The word daimon derived from the Greek language and represents the positive aspects in the culture of demons.  Demons were considered intermediaries between the gods and humans. 

Each person possesses an inner image of completeness, an essence, just like a tulip bulb holds within it the essence of the flower it will be. Subtle intimations from within mark our true destiny and reveal our true selves.  People, like bulbs, are developing, growing, changing even if we don’t see it.  Each day brings subtle changes that push a person into new directions and challenges just like the bulb reaching upward to the sky.

Gallery, Frances Morrison Branch Library

August 2012

Crossroads, Pathways and Intersections

The only thing that we can be certain of in life is change. We are constantly faced with crossroads, pathways and intersections, some large and some small.  It is in facing these changes that we can feel fear. This fear may not be of the change but rather of something else that we don’t want to address. Fear can make us mute and immobile forever.

Crossroads make us feel feather light in their freedom and at the same time lead heavy in uncertainty. It is in a farewell of one path that we part with ourselves under the watchful eye of another. This watchful eye of another causes second guessing and a pulling back of certitude.

If You Love Believe in Juliet

There are some experiences that are too big for humans: pain, furious loneliness, death, beauty, and happiness.  This series explores the potion that took the lives of Romeo and Juliet. The artwork displays jars that were found objects and are labelled with quotations from the play.  It is unknown what they contain.  The unsuspecting lovers trusted a jar with their lives. The contents were unknown, and it was foolhardy to consume it.

Imperious Intimacy

Intimacy based on subtle nuances, shared history, collective memory and innate understanding of another’s thoughts is imperious in its very nature. The “imperious” and special intimacy that can only be gained through time and intimate knowledge of another is interesting in its energy.  Is the trip to becoming intimate with another ever over, or is it a never-ending cycle of getting to know a new person as they grow and change? Is the soul a place of facts? Or is it a shadow of the day before and the day before that???  Is there an invisible existing reality in each of us??? Our own souls as intimate and entangled as they are with us the person may not even be clearly definable or understandable to us.  It is doubtful that the soul and spirit is a place of facts and this series explores that concept with text and birds on a wire. We perch on the wire of our own understanding of our own personal imperious intimacy and with the intimacy of those around us ready to take flight to the next level of understanding when ready.

Secrets

We submit to a type of death when gazing upon that which we should not.  Just as when we hold a secret we submit to a type of death because it is in the holding of the secret that ours live are forever altered and true freedom can never be attained. Nothing goes away and all changes with secrets.

A person with a secret is like a person with an object in their hand that they must conceal each moment of their lives.  The very nature of every movement and thought is altered. Depending on what the secret is and how it is held the impact can be very large or small. 

Rouge Gallery -Saskatoon
Spring 2011

Cube Gallery, Ottawa 2017

Transparency

Transparency the place where the things you can’t fully remember and what you can’t forget collide in an awakening, and where the intersection of years brings you to clarity of moment, when the mirror of transparency appears, a personal transparency, where all is clear, understood and felt. Transparencies, when the one in the mirror and the one reflected are the same .

Rouge Gallery -Saskatoon
Spring 2011

Cube Gallery, Ottawa 2017

Love Locks and Promises

In Italy, there is a practice among lovers to connect a lock on a bridge and toss the keys in the water.  Once the lock is secured, the keys are tossed in the water, never to be retrieved.   This promise of love begs a question.  Can a relationship remain as constant and strong as this lock on a bridge?

Words are spoken that can never be taken back again.  This is part of human communication that has impacted human relationships since time immemorial.  The phrase “I love you” when spoken can never be taken back, just as the keys tossed in the water can never be recovered.  Three words forever change the two people within the relationship.  What if the other person can’t return the love, what if one or the other does not understand the love given, is frightened by it or is confused?  Locking ourselves together through eternity by voicing three words bares the soul, whether receiving or voicing those words. 

Games People Play

Does our essence determine how we enter the game?

Essence is the truth of what we are, what is our own: our latent and innate tendencies, our inherent gifts, our sympathies and antipathies.  Essence is what we are born with, but how does that essence affect how we play the game or if we even enter the game?

In “The Game” do we have moments of recognition, where we find our inner selves reflected in the outer world? Is this the moment when the game ends and authentic living begins? Are authentic people winners?

Sometimes we want to give up, run away and leave the game but the game is everywhere; leaving the game is leaving life itself. The game does not stop; night or day, the game continues.

It continues in many ways each day, including the possessions game, which takes over some lives and some cultures. The quest for more, the buying and accumulating, takes time from becoming an authentic person or interacting with authentic people.   Each possession we bring into our lives requires something of us and takes time away from relationships.  The game becomes more complex when possessions and people interact.

Rouge Gallery -Saskatoon, 2009

Faculty Club - Saskatoon, 2007

Flow

Using the fish to explore the concept of flow is a natural link.  The collective effervescence of fish moving together belonging to a group with concrete real existence is symbolic of humans absorbed in a task.  As humans we are most satisfied when we do something for the action itself rather than for some other motive.

The moments of flow can also be called a liminal moment; those moments apart from time when you are gripped, taken, when you are so fully absorbed in what you are doing that time ceases to exist.  “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile.” p.3 Flow by Mihaly Csikzenthmihalyi  It is the autotelic moments in life those of self goal that are meaningful. 

National Printmaking Awards, Toronto, May 2011

The Gallery- Frances Morrison Library, Saskatoon 2009

Meewasin Valley Center - Saskatoon, 2009

Dangling Carrots - Fame, Fortune or Happiness

Self-motivation, understanding of one’s own place in the universe and social responsibilities as a member of a population must be balanced for growth to be measured in more than just an economic sense. There is duplicity inherent in the image of a carrot dangling from a stick.

The deliberate deception may encourage forward progress of an animal, but is unlikely to work for very long in the real world.  Humans in search of fame, fortune and happiness will chase a transparent dangling carrot that is seen by no one but the pursuer.  To reach fame, fortune or happiness, the mirage that is constructed in the mind of the aspiring individual will block out enough of reality to overcome obstacles to the goal. 

There is no concrete definition of “making it”, each person’s defining moment of “making it” is different.  Fame, fortune and happiness are never fully attained in all people’s eyes. Each person reaches for his own dangling carrot, which is a completely intangible and sometimes illogical destination.  What is duplicity to some may be satisfaction for others.  It may be necessary to continue to chase more elaborate and new dangling carrots in order to continue to strive and not stagnate as a person both spiritually and physically.

Mackenzie Art Gallery - Regina, 2008

Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery, Saskaton, 2009

Art Gallery of Swift Current, 2009

Chapel Gallery, North Battleford, 2009

Barr Colonly Heritage and Cultural Center, Lloydminster, AB, 2009

E. A. Rawlinson Center for the Arts, PRince Albert, SK, 2009

Touch

The tulip provides an artistic way of exploring various types of touch, and the impact that touching has on our lives.   A touch can give us a concentrated sense of life, an energy transfer like nothing else can.  The touching of souls, minds or hearts that are seeking contact with another is life altering.

Connection

This series explores connections in my own world from the wisdom of a professor, to the innocence of a child that I teach each person changes who I am and who I will become.  The unconditional acceptance of a person allows a connection or a common thread of interest to grow and to become a strong bond and time and distance does not sever.

Sir Francis Bacon said that the worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship. Without connections to other people and their emotions we are destitute

Lives Overlapping

There is a trust in some people that blurs differences and blinds prejudice. Humankind pauses and looks in before entering, as though trust has been lost from natural design. Windows provide distance and a perceived involvement, yet the viewers do not know what the situation is until they participate fully.

Windows allow people to look out, but they also allow people to look in. Why do we look in? Do we want to see that other people are not so different from us? If there were windows on people that allowed us to see into their intentions, motivations, aspirations or potential, humans would we understand each other better. We install windows on superficial items like cars and houses, yet we cover up what is most important and don’t realize that our lives are very similar and overlap in many ways.

Lives overlap all over the world. We hang out our laundry to dry metaphorically and physically and hope that the overlap with others with bring a sense of companionship and understanding.

Trapped

Many times in life we try to trap or hold onto something longer than we can. We try to control scents, people, moments and feelings.  We try to trap moments through photography and smells through perfume.  The perfume jars are a symbol for this attempt to trap the scents of nature in a jar to use later.  When that bottle is opened and the perfumed is applied, the scent is lost to the air.

A perfume lingers after the person wearing it has departed.  The scent may be in the room, on a piece of clothing, or on a pillow they used.  This evokes notions of enduring strength and remembrance.  Perfumes thus symbolize memory.

Vallauris, France 2006

Rouge Gallery - Saskatoon, 2010

Standing Alone

Monique uses tulips, a common flower to represent human emotions, from the fragile to the ferocious.  Fields of  flowers like crowds of people, often make us less aware of  the individual characteristics and nuances each posseses.  Each painting is ground level view  focusing on a single flower among an arrangement that personifies an intense human emotion.  As in a family, everyone appears similar yet will feel, respond and experience situations in a totally unique way - in essence standing alone.

Gallery on the Roof, Regina, 2001

Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 2001

Chapel Gallery, North Battleford, 2002

Hotel de Ville- Ottawa, 2002

Hobart, Tasmania, 2003, Mount Vernon, USA, 2003

Gatineau, QC, 2005

Nice, France 2006

Spalding, England 2007

Permanent Installation Spalding England 2008

Time marches toward confluences of harmony and conflict. The shaded images in black and white represent loss of innocence through aging.  The color works toward peace and a better way to handle conflict.   Major events are highlighted in color, the everyday tasks blend into shades of black and white.

Snelgrove Gallery, Saskatoon, 2003

Station Arts Center, Rosthern, 2004

Refinerary Arts and Spirit Centre, Saskatoon, 2004

Cumberland Gallery, Regina, 2005

Fragile

Those who suffer due to life’s unfortunate accidents can suffer an anathema that is not of their choosing.  As the outcome of each individual decision forces the direction of the next decision, events play out in a multitude of opportunities and challenges.  There is a delicate balance between stability and change that is tipped by circumstance and chance.  The survival of the fittest is completely negated through errors in judgment, a lack of understanding or the ever-present twists of fate. 

Our world, our own lives, our health, our relationships and our safety are all fragile.  At any given moment something could happen that could change the very nature of our lives and our existence in it.   We can be shaken out of our comfortable lives through the unconscious acts of others in a split-second.  We surround ourselves in seemed luxury and safety.  Our automobiles are a shell that we take for granted and trust, yet they can be shattered in a moment through all too common accidents as a result of lack of attention or care.

Treasured Hurts

There are hurts we hang on to that are re-lived.  Memories hide for a long time and can surface again to cause new pain. The vessels in these paintings represent human beings.  People search to understand themselves and it is their treasured hurts that have made them who they are or stopped them from becoming who they want to be.

Abundance

To have abundance is to recognize there is an oversupply.  It is the acquisition of material goods beyond what is needed.  There are many choices to make to fill our days and it is necessary to recognize when enough is enough.  However, each possession collected demands something of us and this demand is often time.

A major factor in the increased stress in many lives can be attributed to abundance.  The over-indulgence in gathering possessions is an attempt to measure success.  The challenge for modern society is to build abundance in life of non-material possessions and recognize their value.  Stress results from all types of abundance and equilibrium is established when there is a balance between needs and wants.

Naked Soul - Working Mother

The series explores a working mother’s place in society from conception of the child to the reality of living the day-to-day life of a working mother.  The exhaustion, the fear, the anger, the tension and the jealousy are part of the experience of the woman in the series.

Point du Vue Cultural Center, St. Isidore, Qc 2002

Chapel Gallery, North Battleford, SK, 2002

Godfrey Dean Gallery, Yorkton, SK, 2003