Jaynus O’Donnell creates fragmented landscapes based on urban scenic experience. Her multi-textured collage and mixed media works present 3-dimensional forms that float somewhere between solid and soft, miniature and ‘mega’. Based on her own interactions with nature through various collections, including magazines such as National Geographic and instructional scientific texts for youth, as well as recollections and imagined landscapes, these works reconstruct natural encounters as distilled and combined forms. Jaynus O’Donnell completed a BFA at the University of British Columbia and an MA at Concordia University, Montréal, where she currently lives and works.

The artist will discuss various works in a public conversation with Burnaby Art Gallery Assistant Curator Jennifer Cane on Monday May 14th, 1p.m., Bob Prittie Library. Refreshments will be provided. This is a free event and no registration is required. For more information please contact shaun.dacey@burnaby.ca

Image: Jaynus O’Donnell, Rock Sample VI, 2012, watercolour and collage on paper, 55.9 cm x 55.9 cm

It was a week long install for the exhibition  Sleep of Reason at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  I was lucky enough to have five of the nine artists there with me.  From the point I flew in, I learned about this interesting discussion that had been brewing on the local Yukon arts message board surrounding the show.  A few people, having read the premise for the show, felt that my position on Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters was not the commonly understood interpretation of the piece (I admit, this is true!).  It all comes down to this one word, sueño (Spanish: “dream”).  It’s strange that this work has been part of the canon for so long, and so well-known translated with the word “sleep”.  A word changes so much.  It’s been really interesting writing the essay for this show, talking about Goya’s  Enlightenment critique.  Going way astray into Cervantes, Diderot, and owls holding chalk.  It was great to have this artistic quandary get fired up in the Yukon, with historians showing up to the opening, and talking about some fundamental features and assumptions we all hold.  It seems rare to find a space for such an open and real dialogue about the past.  Thank you to the very talented and accommodating staff at the Yukon Arts Centre.  The show runs from March 22-May 19, 2012 and features work by Sonja Ahlers, Shuvinai Ashoona, Jim Holyoak, David Horvitz, Jeff Ladouceur, Nadia Moss, Rosemary Scanlon, Joseph Tisiga, and Jen Weih.

A new mix for December 2011.  It’s been a good year.

This photo was taken during a gale-force chinook in Banff.
Barrelling warm wind.  The bird in the photo was being
flipped upside down while flying, just rolling and tumbling.
And the sky did that.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2b1b2x

A new mix  for Summer 2011.

Made after a week of pulling ivy, pruning rhododendron,

picking pine cones, and transplanting ferns.

Tender Green

Jake has now created a great online store featuring finely crafted pieces and rarities. The site is a bit like a distilled Garage Sale, where almost every piece is good, and everything is priced very reasonably. It’s what happens when you cross a very good art gallery with a very good store that sells odds and ends, beautiful things, useful items, interesting oddities.

www.thetentshop.ca

This wasn’t a total vacation for David, who was in town launching his most recent publication, My Grandma’s Recipes.  In the cutest little box edition of reproductions of his Grandmother’s handwriting and other notations, it’s really worth checking out: Chinese Chicken Salad, Ambrosia, and other culinary delights.  He was part of an installation and project in conjunction with Fillip during The Fair, in which The Waldorf hotel hosted a weekend-long international art fair over the weekend of June 3-5th (which was pretty great overall!).

David’s Wikipedia Photograph’s for Fillip document some important local elements through the Commons:  namely, Yukon Bacon and Scotch Broom~ pictured here.  Barely perceptible amongst those bright blossoms is David himself~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytisus_scoparius, and then also implicated in some Canadian Cuisine here (Yukon Bacon)~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_cuisine

I call David the Best Tourist not only because he’s always up for anything, but also because he makes things happen and always talks to people, everywhere.  Always asks questions.  It’s that very American knack of just talking to strangers that Canadians seem to avoid, for whatever reasons.  David got in a day of work and sightseeing, which seem to be equal parts of his artistic practice.  Having invited him to participate in the Yukon 2012 show Sleep of Reason, I’m looking forward to see how he proposes to get there, or what he intends to explore in such a remote corner of the world.