Reviews
Ruth Beer on NATURAL AFFINITIES, Chop Newsletter, Malaspina Printmakers, Spring 2008
Catherine Stewart’s exquisitely produced artworks are diptychs juxtaposing the human figure or parts of human anatomy with images of zoological specimens. These evocative black and white photo etchings on warmly toned translucent paper explore a sensitive and surprising alchemy by bringing together scientific, expressive, and aesthetic signs and symbols that underscore and celebrate the curious correspondences of human and other animal forms. Her carefully selected images are meant to heighten awareness of our shared traits and heritage. Her combinations side-step predictability and destabilize our understanding.
Her intention is not to limit the reading of the work but to open possibilities for interpretation by the viewer. Her pairings highlight the beauty that underscores the sublime intricacy of mechanical design of human and animal bodies and the way they operate. For example, in Northern Flicker and Shoulder X-ray, she joins together the image of the skeletal human ribcage and shoulder with a companion image of a bird with its wing spread wide. This juxtaposition relates the movement of the wing to the mechanics of human appendages and, by extension, to our shared capacity for free movement. In Wedding Couple and Golden Pheasants, the pairing of an archival photographic negative of a wedding photograph with one depicting a male and a female bird specimen lying side be side reminds us that mating, the main mechanism of evolution, is necessary for the propagation of all species. Wood Thrush and Chest X-ray presents a poignant image of a bird in a cardboard box raising associations with a humble bed or coffin and, paired with the medical x-ray, brings to mind our mutual susceptibilities. In Snowshoe Hare Maxilla and Child Laughing, analysis of the strictly composed image of a detailed specimen showing the jaw and teeth of the hare are counterposed with the image of a child’s joyous smile exposing her teeth in unselfconscious abandon. Stewart’s coupled images proposing visual, anatomical or other co-relations complement each other. Her elegantly simple compositions, engaging iconography and refined technique are seamlessly integrated to encourage discourse about representation and the construction of knowledge.
Scientific research methods and museumology also play key roles in the development of her concepts and are germane to the meaning of the work. When visiting the Spencer Entomological Museum and the Cowan Vertebrate Museum at the University of British Columbia, Stewart became intrigued by the contents of storage drawers full of carefully arranged specimens and the highly rigorous nature of zoological curatorial practice. She photographically documented specimens from these collections including identification labels that reference naturalists’ organizational systems and represent the plethora of precise information contained in these collections.
From seemingly antiquated handwritten tags and family photographs, to digital X-rays and appropriations from the internet, Stewart built up a diverse archive of information which she has freely adapted for use in her representations of the human or animal body. By drawing from the particular, she makes visual statements that are universal in character – this northern flicker stands in for all northern flickers, this wedding couple for all wedding couples, etc. She is not interested in a strict documentary approach but rather in representing her subject by expressive means through digitally manipulating photographs or layering transparencies to create hybrid forms to correspond with a partner image. Extrapolation from the specific to the generic is further enhanced by the conversion of her original colour photographs to black and white photo-etchings. They are no longer exact recordings but, rather, representations of an idea.
Every aspect of this work is carefully considered and, like a haiku poem, nothing is extraneous – every detail contributes to an effortless appreciation of the work and a complex reading found in the layered sophistication of the meticulously produced and synthesized conceptual foundation of this impressive body of work. These works that address ways of knowing through detailed examination, observation, and the imaginative manipulation of recorded data, underscore questions about how we understand human and animal commonalities and differences. Stewart provides us with new provocative and imaginative ways to consider that relationship.
The reviewer, Ruth Beer, is a Vancouver- based artist and writer. She has exhibited sculpture, photography and video in national and international exhibitions. Her collaborative writing projects have been published in numerous journals. She is the recipient of several Canada Council Visual Art Grants and public art commissions. She is an Associate Professor and former Head of Visual Art at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She is on the Board of Directors of Presentation House Gallery and for the past six years served as an artist representative on City of Vancouver Public Art Committee.