Megan Dietrich: Mama Look at that Shiny Cloud
/May 24 - June 7
Opening Reception May 24, 1-3 PM
Artist in Attendace
Megan Dietrich’s mix of painterly virtuosity and attention to fleeting, mortal moments create a visual dialog throughout her solo exhibition Mama Look at that Shiny Cloud. They relate to what she calls ‘the paradox of personhood’ – a sense of living in the body that seems especially urgent in the age of A.I.…The marks I make, at the moment I make them, in the space that I do, with the intention and the history and context behind it – that can’t be replicated. And I feel like we can apply that to almost everything we enjoy. Whether it’s an outfit or a freshly made bed or a song or a really good croissant or a sunset or a laugh or a swim.
Informing this perspective is Dietrich’s recent decision to leave Vancouver to raise her two sons in Powell River. This change of setting adds context to the ideas Dietrich is exploring around connections between technology and humanity. Being in a small town the constant ping of notifications diminishes. In keeping with the way social media and technology offers up our lives as quick bites; Dietrich says “I feel like painting is less about memory/story specifically and more about documentation through presence and a noticing. It's about the subtleties of a unique voice and experience.”
As an exhibition title, Mama Look at that Shiny Cloud! recalls Picasso’s claim that an artist must become a child, as well as that merging of adult and infant ways of seeing the world that make parenting both delightful and complex. There is a vulnerability in other titles by Dietrich as well: Small, Hands & Knees, and Highest Chance of Survival address moments of submission and attention that make her works poignant and personal to viewers. Part of Dietrich’s uniqueness is her candor in embracing uncertainty which this collection wholeheartedly embraces.
Looking at Dietrich's influences such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock or Cy Twombly we see her work involves a deeply personal approach. Conceptual, humorous and circumspect, Dietrich’s canvases are more human-sized, her colours more lyrical, her titles more off-centre. There is an undercurrent of feminism, and queerness too, in Dietrich’s undercutting of scale and seriousness. Her focus on what she calls “the small” – foibles of relationships, moments of joy or anxiety in the midst of the domestic day – doesn’t mean the struggle isn’t real, instead it embraces the humanity involved in creating art.
Artist Statement:
This exhibition looks at making meaning from your life in a way that is organic and that embraces the idea of finding peace in being small. Choosing to notice your life as glimpses of light and time. Finding reverence for the ironically common yet profound, esoteric nature of humanity. To me, abstract painting is highly conceptual. Formally, what sets my work apart is only that it comes from me and it comes from a distinct space in the larger collective ecosystem. None of this is new, we’ve all seen abstract paintings thousands of times, and I’ve never been the only person doing the kind of work that I do in the objective sense. I’m not unique and amazing and hyperbolic on paper. But the marks I make, at the moment I make them, in the space that I do, with the intention and the history and context behind it - that can’t be replicated. And I feel like we can apply that to almost everything we enjoy. Whether it’s an outfit or a freshly made bed or a song or a really good croissant or a sunset or a laugh or a swim. That’s the paradox of personhood - being unexceptional yet rare.
