Sometimes God comes to earth disguised as rust, chewing away a chain link fence or mariner’s knife.                    From up close we must seem                                  clumsy and gloomless, like new lovers

– Kaveh Akbar, Soot (2017)

Rust Daughters Say It With Flowers connects the feminine unconscious to the accumulation of works and objects, from the past and present. Visitors to the gallery, whether conscious of it or not, wander through spaces dedicated to the memory of Euphemia “Betty” McNaught (1902 – 2002) and Evy McBryan (1911 – 1985). Their work was germinal in the establishment of an artistic scene in the Peace Region.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      The artworks produced for this exhibition cultivate a history that is either well-worn or leaves its mark through the sedimentation of time, overgrowth, decay and rust. Corduroy Road, an artwork created during Tiziana La Melia’s Artist Residency at the Euphemia McNaught Homestead, uses the technique of frottage to create a rubbing, a print that serves as an index to the cracking concrete foundation of the small bedroom where Euphemia once slept. For La Melia an artist, writer and poet, the act of frottage serves as a writing tool, an imprint that speaks to the language and importance of the unwritten or unread and still to be written. The heritage building that once stood on the grounds no longer exists but the faint traces of the life lived there still exist on its concrete blueprint.

Corduroy Road references the construction of a timber trackway used to level muddy ground and create a path forward. Despite the hardships of laying the foundations of their own ‘corduroy roads’ there is a germinal seed within the feminine unconscious which is passed down and across generations of women artists.

Artist in Residence: May 30 – June 27. This Artist in Residence with the artist Tiziana La Melia, it is our first partnership with the Euphemia McNaught Homestead Society. Working in installation, textile fabrication, painting, video, poetry and performance she will present newly commissioned and existing work in the Gallery.

Photo: Joseph Hartman, The Artist’s Studio, Tiziana La Melia (2016)

This exhibition was curated by Derrick Chang