Ritual Coping

Additional Information

Bev Pike, Joanne Bristol, Mindy Yan Miller

Other associated events: Opening reception with the artists discussing their work November 21, 7:00 pm Central Gallery

Ritual Coping includes works by Bev Pike (Winnipeg), Mindy Yan Miller (Montreal) and Joanne Bristol (Saskatoon). These artists investigate excess in relation to ritual practice as they address coping with absence, the mortal body and death. In their work, they recall the intimate and ritual labours of women who, in their coping, construct personal, familial and cultural histories which impact on our present. Joanne Bristol's wall of dead, dried flowers is wrenchingly poignant in its excess. The ritual pressing and drying of these bouquets preserves the moments of their gifting. In the absence of language, they gather and hold time, place and emotion. Bev Pike's skin of painting sheaths the gallery wall, floor to ceiling. Knotted, blood-coloured, and extremely tactile, her bed clothes represent large, disembodied organs. Mindy Yan Miller's repetitive, labour-intensive installation consists of names of relatives remembered and imagined formed from hair draped on dressmaker's pins: Meyer, Ruby, Lily, Nathan. She builds monumental works, grave acts of remembering and forgetting, which investigate fearfulness and mourning in relation to the body. Presented with the financial assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Saskatchewan Arts Board.

Publication: Ritual Coping: Joanne Bristol, Bev Pike, Mindy Yan Miller

Joanne Bristol, (detail) Contemporary Meanings for Cut Flowers 1995