Getting it Together (The Universe) Print

Started as a continuous pandemic diary of domestic life, this series of works captures domesticity during this uncertain time, with the everyday providing the impetus for creation. Repetitive elements such as carpets, hardwood floors, windows, and house plants are integral to this reality of isolation, yet there is also togetherness, community, and belonging. The reality of the pandemic and a year of confinement at home have brought these themes to the forefront of my current work. Yves Klein’s hypnotic blue paintings have always been a source of fascination, and the continued need to follow pandemic protocols and stay home meant an examination of Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, both at the same time. Moreover, given the definition of my own work through vibrant, saturated colours, I was curious to experiment with limiting myself to a much smaller palette. I had used on various occasions an electric blue, itself a hybrid of cobalt and ultramarine, magenta, dioxazine purple, and ecru but never together. By making them the only colours in my palette, I began to limit myself, making blue one of the central components of the work. I was already creating domestic interior paintings and monotypes with repetitive elements during continued pandemic restrictions in Montreal, so the work was deeply personal and introspective. Instead of painting true-to-life, I also wanted to see how the colours would interact with one another. Would introspection still be a key element? What would my chosen palette communicate about the subject matter? Moreover, I began to expand my universe beyond my immediate domestic surroundings to include other elements of my daily life, namely morning walks that became a constant during the headier days of the pandemic.