When you think of me..., 2019

Commissioned work for Supercrawl, Hamilton, ON

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When you think of me... utilizes the same large scale printing processes used in advertising. Mounting the work on scaffolding is suggestive of construction hording, a place where we often see ads acting as the face of a building undergoing change. Displaying the work in this way employs these same tactics; the work is setting out to reveal a truth in its attempt to conceal it.

 

At first blush we wanted the work to be colourful, celebratory and perhaps even sincere. However by the fourth line the internal voice quickly betrays itself to declare a sense of non-care, disclosing the complexities that affect the human experience. Our social-psychological worlds efface us with categorizations, judgments and opinions. The voice manifests a vulnerability and insecurity in the very nature of its request.

New territories are now being unearthed in the current digitized social world where our sense of self is housed and curated on various platforms and in multiple threads of virtual profiles. We may find ourselves at odds with these platforms and the upkeep of our growing numbers of avatars. When you think of me... prods us to consider the concept of self as having multiple and apposing qualities both as a theory and as an applied experience.

 

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We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council in the exhibition needs of this work.