Barbara Cuerden : a follow-up.
Today on the blog we look back at artist in residence Barbara Cuerden. Barbara was with us for the very first week of the residency. Along with Karina Kraenzle, I could not have asked for better residents to launch this new initiative. Both Barbara and Karina were easy-going, wonderful to talk to and, to top it off, took me out on their last day to celebrate the opening of the residency. I mean, how amazing is that?
During their residency we photographed the artists working outside, documenting the landscape for current and future projects. Thankfully, Barbara was kind enough to send me some post-residency photographs including some of the drawings she worked on during her stay, some documentation, and few words on her process. I can't say enough how happy I was that both artists were able to use the landscape surrounding the residency to inform their work. Barbara's use of natural elements and pigments to create these high contrast happenings in nature was especially appealing to me as my own practice is often inspired by contrasting elements and colours in the landscape.
I'm sharing this with you today and invite you to visit Barbara's website to learn more about her practice and activities.
"The cottage residency at Baie Noire was a space that made some space in me for work I didn't expect. The rocks I brought from the edge of the river at Blink Gallery contain traces of iron so I wanted to transpose that to the Quebec side of the river. I brought iron oxide pure pigment with me as well but I didn't know what I'd do with it. As the red of our human blood is made red by iron oxide, I had that in mind too.
At Baie Noire I saw that the little promontory of rocks going out into the water also contained veins of iron, so then after that I played with rocks and about a teaspoon of pigment which bloomed so satisfactorily in the water I really felt I had got blood from a stone! But even that amount of pigment seemed to me to be too big an intervention. After that I tested to see how small I could go until I was not affected, but I never reached that point because the residency was over too soon." B. Cuerden.
