Pam King Exhibit at Nickle Arts Museum

Wednesday, 01 February 2006 11:17

Calgary, Canada - Pam King: Crafted Memories will be the tenth exhibition curated by Christine Sowiak for The Nickle Arts Museum . This long term commitment to the arts community of Calgary was initiated in response to the dynamic and accomplished artists working in the area and the dearth of exhibition opportunities for those artists who are working between the status of "emerging" and "established". Nine years ago, Pam King took a hammer to her grandmother’s porcelain tea set. The broken pieces filled a giant pickle jar. Old family photographs, precious ornaments, mementos, personal effects, and souvenirs all fell victim to the destructive nature of that art project. Over one hundred and twenty jars filled with remnants from the past lined a very long, narrow shelf in the gallery. Later, the trend continued when King began to shred old letters, documents, favourite books, prints, postcards, greeting cards and other personal paperwork. Birth certificates, funeral directors statements, divorce papers all contributed to the pile – shredding her deceased brother’s big thick bible was a particularly haunting experience. The remains of all these shreddings, organized and catalogued rituals all, have been stored in over 1000 clear plastic containers to form a grid on the far wall of the gallery, quietly holding and hiding the minutiae of lives. Other wall pieces that surround the shredded pasts, sections of quilts that are themselves assemblages of torn and cut photographs, visual counterparts to the streamers of text combined into works that are not quite textile, not quite painting. These wall works are seen through, and around, the personification of memory, the structure of a ten-foot-high dress – a garment too large to be a dress, really, too large to be dismissed as a facsimile for a person. It is a looming, floating presence, the embodiment of all the memories sewn to its shell, the mosaic of photographs destroyed yet saved. To what end does one shred and re-assemble every document, every piece of evidence that accompanies a life lived? Is it a process of rejuvenation? of mourning? of transformation? Or, is it perhaps an attempt to defend oneself against all the memories and burdens of loss that accumulate along with living? If one keeps all of the paper flotsam that survives from a lifetime – or if gathered from family from several lifetimes – is one vulnerable to the attached burden of memory? The attempt to shed, to shred, this compiled history is at once seemingly destructive yet also poignantly, poetically vulnerable to its weight. Pam King studied painting in Montréal before receiving her BFA from the University of Alberta in Edmonton and her MFA in painting from the University of Calgary in 1988. She has exhibited throughout Alberta, including solo exhibitions at both the Stride Gallery, Calgary, and the New Gallery, Calgary. Exhibition ends 31 March, 2006 Visit : http://www.ucalgary.ca/~nickle/

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