Sam Kinsley (Halifax, NS) | Evidence of Action
October 4 – November 8, 2018
Artist Talk at 7:30PM | Reception to follow
Artist Statement
In my practice I employ the ways I am defined in society to create my own systems of self description; my economy, physicality, and culture translated into self-portraits.
This exhibition focuses on my physicality. I chart my body’s changes and investigate the slow accumulation of my bodily by-products. I use my personal self-care and beauty rituals as routine collection methods, documenting the evidence of my physical existence. The accumulated matter, lip prints, hair, and finger-prints are used for creating drawings, prints, installations, and performance. By ritualizing these routine, mundane tasks I seek to take authority over how I am portrayed, and to exercise my ability to self identify.
Through these drawings and prints, I aim to portray my ageing feminine body in ways that are subtle, beautiful, systematic, and unusual; to create a series of portraits that are abstract, yet specific and representative. They are evidence of rumination on personal, perceptions of beauty, value, worth, and labour.
Evidence of Action.
Evidence of Action is a 4 piece exhibition, each piece describing an element of my physicality; a large ceramic sculpture describing my weight; a 35 sheet print piece my skin, using the changing lines on my body and age as parameters for mark making; and two human hair sculptures, a documentation of my hair loss and rejection over one year.
Biography
Sam Kinsley is an interdisciplinary artist of settler ancestry living in unceded territory of the Mi’Kmaq people in K’jiputuk (Halifax), where she received a BFA from NSCAD University. Sam uses drawing, performance, printmaking, and ceramics to investigate alternative forms of portraiture.
Exhibition Brochure with text by Virginia Mitford (PDF)
We acknowledge the support of Arts Nova Scotia.
We acknowledge the support of Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Nous remercions the Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier Le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de L’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tous Le pays.