Method | Adrienne Dagg
Bau-Xi Gallery
Founded one of Canada's most established contemporary fine art galleries.
My work is about uncertainty in the face of perceived stability, the process of searching and developing each piece reflects the instability under the surface of an apparently finished product. As I begin each piece, it is integral to the work that I not know its ultimate visual outcome because the paintings are in a process of becoming undone. New forms in the work are created and broken apart until equilibrium is eventually achieved. I employ this process to analyze contemporary anomie.
The ideas for my paintings usually stem from a specific emotional state that I wish to express or identify. I go through a process of collecting and gathering information to better understand this state of mind before I try to paint it.
Planning a painting is pretty organic and fluid. It usually begins with an imagined image that I sketch out or write down in a note pad. To give it shape I then begin a process of collecting reference images to help inform and give the idea structure. I set up photoshoots with models or collect reference images from all kinds of sources; 1970’s magazines, old books, digital images or personal photos. I cut them out, combine and collage these reference images together in order to create new configurations that speak to my idea. Through this process I am presented with different possibilities and have to adapt and react to outcomes that were previously unimaginable to me until eventually I settle on a structure for the painting
The amount of change that happens to a piece from start to finish can be pretty surprising to some because I work in such a representational manner. The exploration at the beginning is all about the idea and piecing together the narrative, during which my work can be quite abstract. Sometimes it comes out as planned, while other times I get to discover the narrative through the collage process itself.
I work on large canvases that engage and involve my full body when I work. A large brush lets me quickly and effectively change a piece when I need to and feels like an extension of my own hand.
-Adrienne Dagg
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