A solo-exhibition of sculptures, drawings, and video, at Latitude 53, Edmonton, Alberta.

May 22–July 25, 2020

         

“Neurosis is a makeshift: not with regard to “health” but with regard to the “impossible” Bataille speaks of (‘Neurosis is the fearful apprehension of an ultimate impossible,” etc); but this makeshift is the only one that allows for writing (and reading).”

— Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

Sometimes, in my mind’s eye, I put myself in an argument or emotional conflict I feel likely to get wrapped-up in – but in this only-vaguely gratifying act of the imagination, I put myself in the body of someone I have met before, or a fictional character from TV. I imagine what their attitude or disposition would offer to the scenario—that maybe their innate emotional instincts and unique qualities would make a path through the conflict that I would otherwise not come to on my own.

The cartoonist Gabrielle Bell, in her comic Cecil and Jordan in New York, has a character who turns into a chair. In an interview, she says: “My friend who was staying with me, who is the star of that story, had this idea that she wanted to turn into a chair and be taken home by somebody. So I stole her story. She gave it to me.”

The works in this exhibition are situated between the reality of their presence and the documentation of them. This is partially because of a global pandemic, where nobody but the installer will see them in person. But also, the auto-biographical qualities of the works suspended them between fact and fiction. In the board game Operation—the failure of extracting the “Writer’s Block” is jarringly confirmed by the buzzing protestations of the two-dimensional patient. In real life, it’s harder to know if we’re getting anywhere. It takes a lifetime to extract from our bodies the stories we tell ourselves from the stories we’ve been told about who we are. Until we can look closely (usually in hindsight), we can only ever arrive halfway—like a digital image of a printout of a drawing—and maybe we just have to tolerate that for now.

-Walter Scott