Art Review - Language Without Context
Andrew Thorne and Gary James Joynes/Brad Neyck/Van Grimde Corps Secrets at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre
Running at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre from March 3 - April 15, 2023, these two exhibitions feature found text and printmaking by emerging artist Thorne, and a video installation of two short films by longtime Edmonton collaborators Neyck and Joynes with the Montreal dance company, Van Grimde Corps Secrets.
This week is the last week to see the exhibitions Radio Becomes Clear by Andrew Thorne and The End of the World // The Birth of the World by Brad Neyck, Gary James Joynes, and Van Grimde Corps Secrets Dance Company.
Radio Becomes Clear
Radio Becomes Clear is my introduction to local emerging print artist Andrew Thorne. Born and raised in Moncton, New Brunswick, Thorne relocated to Edmonton in 2021 to participate in the SNAP Artist-In-Residency program. Thorne completed his interdisciplinary Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from NASCAD University in Halifax (2020). He has quickly established himself as an up-and-coming print artist and instructor in Edmonton, working with SNAP, the City of Edmonton, Lowlands Project Space, Brighton Block, and Mile Zero Dance.
Thorne uses multiple printmaking techniques in the same pieces. The objects in the prints are mostly text-based. Post-it notes, bus passes, drawings of houses, shopping lists, love notes, and poetic musings are ephemeral records of a single moment in time, now completely removed from the original context. The colours are cohesive, with lots of jewel-tone pastels. Textures of the medium come through to the finished product - woodcuts show the grain and knots of the original wood, screenprints have visible dots. Some plates repeat across pieces, like characters. Some motifs appear in prints that establish Edmonton as place - an ETS monthly bus pass, a magpie, a rabbit. Other motifs point to a range of topics and perspectives - from housing, to grocery lists, to I-love-yous.
Radio Becomes Clear also includes a handmade zine featuring out-of-context snippets from Thorne’s personal journal over two years. The entries are vulnerable but thoughtful, recording things like conversations overheard on the bus, thoughts on reading articles, or listening to music. Thorne regularly uses local Indigenous names for places, rather than the more-familiar-to-us colonial names. His writing feels very familiar and reminds me of my own writing, as if I had written it several lifetimes ago and simply forgotten.Â
Beside the zine by the window is a small TV screen showing a video composed by Thorne. The video follows an aesthetic similar to the prints - drawings, hands, layers of things. There are headphones beside the TV, but the sound from the other gallery is already overwhelming and I find myself quickly turning away, distracted. I enjoy the space, though. Thorne uses the gallery space fully, even the windows! He has covered the windows with woodblock prints on fabric that run from the very top of the ceiling all the way down to the floor. The overall effect is soft, bright, and immersive.
Birth of the World / End of the World
The main gallery is closed off with thick black curtains and no windows. It is pitch black, save for the bright light emitted from a large projection screen. It takes a bit for the eyes to adjust, but there are cubes with pillows provided for seating, and the artists’ statement is presented on the back wall with a single dramatic light.Â
Watching the videos feels heavy and dark. There are two separate videos, one titled Birth of the World and one titled End of the World. Both videos feature a pair of dancers, plainly dressed in white leotards in sparse rooms. The dancers use spastic, repetitive, angular movements. There is no speaking, no expression, but the title of the works and the presentation makes me look for a story anyway.Â
The dancers are the only humanoids present in the films, but even they are a projection of a projection. Except for a brief interlude at the beginning of End of the World, the film shows the dancers as a projection into a room devoid of life. The room is decorated with strange water sculptures, glass spheres, overgrown plants, and dark, damp concrete floors. The sound is still overwhelming, but at least now it matches the environment. I find myself antsy at first, then settling down, and finally finding it difficult to leave. The sound embraces us when the dancers don’t.
I find it difficult to tell the two films apart, though I enjoy them both. It seems less final than the title led me to expect. Instead of apocalyptic destruction, we watch the tides rising and falling, the sun rising and setting, and the rain starting and stopping. The dancers seem antagonized and eventually decommissioned in one film, and slowly uploaded or printed in the other. Cycles of technology become connected to cycles of nature.
The technology aspect of this exhibition is significant and allows for impressive collaboration between multiple local creators.
Brad Neyck and Gary James Joynes are regular collaborators that present both audio and visuals on equal footing and importance in their works. Van Grimde Corps Secrets is a dance company based in Montreal and founded by Isabella Van Grimde. Van Grimde Corps Secrets takes a transdisciplinary approach to dance and the human body. The artwork in the films’ room are created by fellow Edmonton artists aAron Munson, Marilène Oliver, and Veronika Marks.
These artists have all worked together on previous projects, and the films contain allusions to these previous works. They share interests in technology, communication, collaboration, the human body, and the human mind.
When Joynes talks about the project, he describes it as one might describe writing. He uses words like finding that voice and sentence structures and meticulously punctuated. Machine learning and psychedelics also come up in conversation. Clearly, exploring different rhythms and methods of communication is an integral theme to The World.
Cause and Effect
Individual reviews will be forthcoming, but I was struck by how both exhibitions use collaboration and language to form their work. They both have an experimental, do-it-yourself approach to artmaking. They share interests in language, writing, and sound. They work with found materials, different people, and different mediums. They layer several combinations of technologies and techniques to create their respective works.
They also use very different techniques, and thus produce very different results.
Thorne’s work is decidedly analogue and text-based. Neyck/Joynes/Van Grimde’s work is much more technological and uses body language, sound, and rhythm to explore language and storytelling. Thorne’s collaboration with others is subtle and more personal, as he tends to use traces of other people (found text, overheard conversations, etc.) rather than the overt digital collaboration that Neyck/Joynes/Van Grimde use.
I walked away from both exhibitions feeling inspired to write, even if what I wrote was completely nonsensical. But I also find myself seeing comparisons to previous exhibitions I’ve reviewed at Harcourt, thinking about how Edmonton’s intergenerational art scene seems to be developing collective thoughts on storytelling, collaboration, and exploration of Edmonton as a place. We share a process-based, do-it-yourself approach to artmaking. We work with the resources we have, in order to build resources that we wish we had.
Edmonton is so fucking punk.
I’ve got to write that down.
Freyja T. Catton is a writer, artist, and researcher based in Alberta, Canada. More of their work is available at Wordeater News or on their website, https://thewordeater.com.