Snow Asylum

Solo

2011

Artist’s Statement

The series title alludes to asylum’s original meaning: A place of refuge. A Haven or Sanctuary.

19th Century language imbibed the word with the negative idiom of punishment and incarceration. This suited my prevailing ambiguity towards all the explicit imagery I’ve chosen. Does the icon of arrow convey impending attack or is it a signal of good news?

That is up to the viewer since icons invariably provoke an auto-emotive response that varies from individual to individual. In this regard, I’m hoping to challenge the viewer to explore their own set of symbols. The titles of each piece making up the series reflect a military state of being before, during, and after conflict, in contemporary media language. This is a conscious juxtaposition against the concrete imagery of the medieval portcullis, for example, which underscores the point that history bears witness and persists in telling us the same stories with uncanny accuracy.

It’s my intention to convey these emotive conditions to demonstrate that when we bear witness to and experience conflict and injustice on any scale, we are all changed. It’s just a matter of degree and how we process it.