Rande Cook and Arlene Nesbitt by Debora Alanna

Innovative Visions of the Formline
Rande Cook
Works on paper and drum
13 May – 9 June 2010
Alcheringa Gallery
665 Fort St, Victoria BC

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Rande Cook displays pride in his Kwakwaka’wakw heritage. A legacy of this First Nation’s tradition is the oral chronicles shared between its people. Visual depictions of stories, events and evocations embody art works. Impressions within oral histories befit specific, significant forms. Integral to this visual culture is the illustration of energy as Formline. Formline is not the outline of ovoids, circles and U form shapes that permeate the fundamental workings of this tradition; it is the coloured contour within the outline. Asserting the power and force found in living things, Formline tells stories, fortifies narratives with established shaping and colour.
Studying Formline as it transforms through time, and bringing his own interpretation of this evolution to his artwork, Cook presents more than a diachronic development. His innovative approach to Formline articulates and expands the historical application while respecting the Kwakwaka’wakw origins to this process. Sequentially, each work advances traditional design with crafted boldness.
Mapping sensation and reflection dominates Cook’s paintings. He develops intuitive terrain and elevates the sensibility of each idea he surveys. Taking Flight initiates the challenge to Formline with gentle colouration and graceful stretching. Supernatural amplifies that challenge, widening the central circle, releasing the restraint of visual modality from customary containment. Emerging heightens the feeling of possibility. A spacial incision releases the flow of energy, allowing burgeoning growth. Yellow ochre is the colour of healing, according to Cook. U forms, held by symbolic healing power enables the emergence of a new force. Bringing Light shows further release of Formline, with a lightening of palate and acknowledgement of presence, a disembodied spirit. In Play is mischievous teasing of Formline, testing and taunting the picture plane. Cook reveals introspection in Perception/Projection. Balancing elements are contrapuntal investigations. Painting a North West Coast traditional face, depicting the
recognizable nostrils and eye features, he continues to explore his challenges to Formline while confronting himself. Summer (drum), a circular painting on a drum is an explosive resonance, releasing Formline sensibility. A female figure, embedded in the reverberation of colour and abstracted Formline portrays in a contemporary stance. Elegance combines Formline and Cooks unique development. With a modish woman holding a wine glass, traditional structuring whirls and roots this work. Kwakwaka’wakw imagery tempers modern abandon.
More than half a century ago, First Nations artists were considering the importance of maintaining cultural integrity while developing new art practises. ” In 1948, (George) Clutesi claimed his art practice as a platform for ensuring that the old would not be totally sublimated to the new. He expressed his belief that “as long as paint exists on canvas, [my people’s] dances and legends will not be lost.[1]”[2] Through Rande Cook’s distinctive contribution to the enduring Kwakwaka’wakw culture, he advocates and advances his ethnic longevity, fearlessly contributing to its cultural vision.

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[1] Crosby, Marcia. Making Indian Art Modern. Vancouver, BC: Ruins in Process. Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. http://www.vancouverartinthesixties.com/
[2] Native Voice, September 1948, 3.

Image Informed
Arlene Nesbitt
Photomontage and digitally mixed media
21 May – 4 June 2010
Collective Works Gallery
1311 Gladstone Ave, Victoria BC

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Arlene Nesbitt’s work is awakening. Her sumptuous prints line the Collective Works walls, toying and tugging at what is present in our senses. Drawings on various surfaces superimpose photographs, expertly layered. Each work evokes an intense revelation.
Paul Trejo’s 1993 analysis of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (alias Phenomenology of Spirit) [1] explains that Hegel used phenomenon to consider appearance. “... we can only know Reality when we have completely mastered the appearances, since the appearances (phenomena) partially hide and partially reveal Reality... and there can be degrees of truth in propositions.” “Phenomena of mind also partially hide and partially reveal the truth.”
Nesbitt has employed this understanding of Phenomenology in her work. Crumpled aluminum becomes phenomenon (Invocation, Tracks). There is a transportation of our senses, a marvellous transmutation from the reality of metal, of industry and its connotations of impairment. These works transfigure material existence it plays with our understanding of the truth of the object. Crushed rose petals become a metallic ballet. (Dancer 1 and Dancer 11) Genuine, Nesbitt’s work touches us because this suggestion of our physical world allows us belief. Beauty hovers, suggesting physicality, which alludes to our vulnerability, a rumpled idea.
Recalling Marshall McLuhan, Derick de Kerchove said: “... he was constantly discovering, as if feeling the shapes of knowledge with his hands. ...thinking not with his head but with all his senses... did not deduce things... he perceived directly...” [2] Here, there is a correspondence to Nesbitt’s working process. Through works like Hybrid 1 and Hybrid 11, machinations layer the sensation of circulating discovery. Strokes of crayon or droplets on Mylar over industrial histories inculcate living memory through her sensual processing. Nesbitt’s direct perceptions communicate visual acuity.
In works such as Out of Kilter and Fence, Nesbitt employs nature, supplanting awe with consideration. We struggle to see foliage; she obfuscates the view with pattern and structure. Superimposed, coloured touches transfer complication to our preconceptions. We encounter a hermetic restlessness, a withdrawal to ruminate, to introspect. We recognize this need, and her work has brought us to the hermitage.
Nesbit considers the disposition of bones and teeth in Bones, a triptych. Her powerful presage to mortality directs our emotional enlightening, applying gentility to our fear. We become receptive to Nesbitt’s wilful surface light stirring our biases.
Meeting is a playful portraiture. Nesbitt soaks colour, enlivens the surface, composing a current that radiates around the intimation of two figures. A portent, the radiance inundates, and reciprocity is phenomenon. video

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[1] Trejo, Paul. Summary of Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, 1993. http://philosophy.eserver.org/hegel-summary.html
[2] de Kerckhove, Derrick. Zulu Time (orig. L'heure zulu), 1999 NFC documentary, director Jonny Silver