Under Construction 9 Painting

The "Under Construction" series consists of twelve self-portraits with each canvas revealing a different layer of my experiences. I began the series in 2009. The collection was first exhibited at The Art Gallery of Peterborough in 2010 accompanied by a catalogue titled "Cartographies". The catalogues essay was written by curators Pamela Edmonds and Sally Frater. After the exhibition completed, I continued to work back into the pieces and then continued to exhibit them and then work in more of my experiences and so on. Many of the works are barely recognizable from where they began over a decade ago. I decided to offer them for sale at the Artist Project earlier this year. I sold the first one of the series which in a way marks both its death and rebirth. Death because no more changes can be made to it now and birth because it now gets to exist in its completion. Canvas has become more than the foundation in my process. It is the base, the middle and the surface. I strip away at the fabric and fill the remaining spaces in the canvas with traditional anh contemporary content. The technique of "thread pulling" I employ to the canvas is dated back to traditional West African culture. Simple fabric was elevated by removing threads and intricately interweaving more decorative designs where the threads were removed. In my paintings, materials are intricately interwoven into the spaces where the threads have been removed. I also add "found pigments" and further destroys and embellishes the fabric. By subtraction and addition, the work develops into a contemporary piece embedded with tradition. Employing the canvas as a metaphor for the underlying fabric of Canadian society, I embed fragments of our culture inside the windows formed within the canvas. The square is a reoccurring element in my work and is used as a symbol of growth, order and stability that has become the backdrop for Western living.