The Meaning of Symbols: The Meaning of Memories
Saturday, September 25 – Sunday, October, 2021
This piece The Meaning of Symbols: The Meaning of Memories is part of the Parallel Show, a juried show which is part of the Salt Spring National Art Prize. It is a 3Dimensional piece that you can walk around. The three paintings of the plane crash, the three women and me as a child and the wartime wedding are all part of the piece. The installation was developed from memories of a childhood dominated by the Second World War. Family scenes are painted in acrylics and pencil on the exterior, while words and images from the war are drawn in pencil on the interior panels. It was triggered by high school students wearing t-shirts adorned with swastikas. Progressively fewer people have the background or knowledge to understand the real significance of a symbol like the swastika, which embodied so much hatred, cruelty, and destruction in the 20th century.
I haven’t done a piece quite like this before. The closest to it are the three Afghanistan books and the three models that go with those books (see these images on my New Work page), so I’m really going back to my theatre background combining set models with painting and drawings.
More images of my exhibit are posted on my Mixed Media page.