In March 2020, I responded to pandemic isolation by creating collages in my living room. I eventually made more than 70 individual images collectively titled On the Other Hand. Working with gifted and thrifted national geographic magazines, I embraced the virus by channeling its RNA code to cast spells through hieroglyphic forms. By bringing disparate elements together into new configurations, an emergent lexicon is cast of human gestures and cultural artifacts. These sparse, abstract images operate as a kind of writing, open to interpretation while resonating our shared bodily experiences of uncertainty.
Five of the collages were turned into twenty bus shelter posters for the city of Vancouver’s Platforms 2020: Public Works project. At the end of the year I participated in grunt gallery’s Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen workshops and produced a two minute video about the making of the collages. In the spring of 2021 (April 24 – May 29) OTOH was installed at Will Aballe Art Projects | WAAP as part of CAPTURE Photography Festival 2021. Mineral Garden Redux, a selection of works shown at the Biennale of Sydney NIRIN 2020 were also part of the exhibition.