JAN DICKEY - Department of Art and Art History: University of Hawaii at Manoa

EXHIBITION

On view as a part of 2017 MFA THESIS EXHIBITIONS at

The Art Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
March 5 – April 7, 2017

Jan Dickey presents cover the earth, an installation of paintings

cover the earth focuses on two forms of painting: covering walls with white house paint, i.e. “whitewashing,” and laminating the surface of textiles that are stretched over wooden frames, i.e. “paintings on canvas” or “easel paintings.”

Artist’s Statement:
This is the kind of research I do. I look for affective responses that occur according to the cracks and flows of natural tempera paint (milk and eggs), as well as in the seepage of soil, rust, rabbit skin glue, and madder root. I am always stretching, un-stretching, and re-stretching canvas over wooden frames. Sometimes the back becomes the front. I staple the canvas directly to wall and remove it. Sometimes the wall becomes a painting. I get closer and closer to my materials and their smells become more familiar: the stench of milk curd, the hot choking steam from the madder root, the congealing animal fat, etc. Nothing is revealed. There are irrational fleeting moments of closeness to paint, and painting. My objects are the result of this fugitive searching, an the unending labor of pulling things together and looking at them, holding them gently in place, as they discolor and come apart.