Clinging (2023)

Window installation at the Massy Arts Society, Vancouver BC

Clinging places the imagery of two fires within the former storefront windows of the historic Ming Wo building. Respectively entitled Wall Fire and Stage Fire, the images are composed of 40 jigsaw relief prints on handmade paper created in 2019. These works explore the possibilities of pattern, print and papermaking as a means of creating theatrical imagery that envelops the viewer in its scale, colour and composition. The resulting installation upholds the image of fire as a symbol of tension and transformation within imagined locations; whether on a wall or on a stage, the fire is caught between its dependence upon and consumption of a burning space as a means of brightness.

The exhibited works are an amalgamation of suspended sheets of poster-sized paper made from the pulp of thrifted graphic T-shirts. Like a puzzle, the irregular paper was individually printed using jigsaw woodblocks that broke each colour into separate pieces before being inked and pieced back together on a letterpress. The prints now hang tentatively together in the gallery windows.