Naming an art exhibition is not, as some might think, randomly generated. A great deal of effort goes into describing a show.
Artists and curators will often fall back on the colon, a two-title formula, which allows for a few words of definition so the reader has some idea of what the show is about.
For instance, the subject matter of Dead: The Transformation, a new show by Powell River painters Amber Friedman and Adam Cramb, seems to be clearly described by the title. It is about death, a creation that transforms to nothing, according to the artists.
“Adam had been using the word ‘dead’ for the last couple of years in his artwork and I always saw it around town,” said Friedman. “It didn’t mean anything to me and, besides meaning nothing to me, I was sometimes perplexed. What does it mean? Why does he write that everywhere?”
According to Cramb, he was opening up ideas and language to things that were non-traditional and relatable to individual experiences.
“We’re educated to the fact that a word means something over time, but it’s up to us to identify it to our own experience,” said Cramb. “I was trying to open it up to the fact that we don’t need to take it so seriously, even to question what it is that’s upsetting.”
Death became personal for Friedman last year, she said, when her father, whom she was close to, passed away.
“I had been working on a series of paintings the week before my dad died and they were slightly haunting,” she said. “Haunting was one of the words that was coming up in my paintings. After my dad passed away, all of a sudden the word ‘dead’ had a lot of meaning.”
The meaning of the word is decidedly negative in western society. It is fundamental to Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which have all attempted to answer with promises of a life after death.
In naming their exhibition Dead: The Transformation, while not religious in meaning, Friedman and Cramb do tackle the fundamental question that underlies “dead,” not as an end or a beginning, but as a transformation. They said it is a question and a statement.
“We didn’t want to just call it ‘Dead’ and leave it at that,” said Friedman. “We thought we’d give people a little bit more, so we tried a few different titles and really thought Dead: The Transformation gave more insight into what dead can mean.”
Friedman, who describes her style as freestyle batique, a method that uses wax applied to dyed fabric, will have 15 pieces for the show. Cramb plans to exhibit 10 and said he hopes to celebrate death in his works.
“As an artist, you want to apply all emotional experience into your work,” he said. “The idea of dead includes everything. It’s just another symbol we can interpret on our own terms.”
Friedman said there are many aspects to what death and dead can mean, not just the loss of a person, but also parts of ourselves. Society does not want to face death, she added.
“As a culture it’s not something we talk about,” said Friedman. “We talk about the weather, but yet we’re all affected and part of death and the transformation of people dying in our lives, and even parts of ourselves dying. It’s happening to all of us, but we still talk about the weather.”
Dead: The Transformation opens from 7-9 pm on Thursday, April 6, at Malaspina Exhibition Centre, Vancouver Island University Powell River campus, and runs until May 2.
