An interview with a few of the Figures in Movement artists. Figures in Movement is an international exhibition hosted by the Langley Arts Council for the AIFS Online Gallery.   

The Langley Arts Council reached out to three artists who have never shown with the LAC before to ask them about their artistic practice and share their answers with our community. We've featured Carol Wylie, David Wilson Clarke, and Katarina Meglic for this short interview.

Carol
Wylie

Where are you from?

I’m originally from Winnipeg, MB, but have lived in a few different places. Saskatoon, SK has been my home since 2005.

Tell us a bit about your practice. What Medium/Mediums do you work
in?

I have been exclusively a portrait & figuration artist for more than 25 years. I work in graphite, charcoal, pastels, oil paint and occasionally clay. Portraiture requires direct interpersonal interaction, and a deeply rooted interest in people. The intensity of the artist/subject gaze is strangely intimate. It’s an artificial situation that paradoxically allows for authentic connection. As our gaze widens from the earliest relationship between caretaker and child and begins to include others we encounter, it eventually encompasses all our social/experiential engagement. When distilled, our politics, our cultures, our social systems, can be reduced to the simple dialogue between one face and another. This, and the mystery of consciousness; how body & mind are connected, continue to fuel my fascination with this kind of work.

Have you shown in an international exhibition before?

A few times, but I think this is the first international online exhibition I’ve shown in. 

Where do you find inspiration?

People inspire me. The idea of one’s consciousness, contained in one’s physical body, keeping us forever separate and our experience of the world completely unique, fascinates me. It inspires me to try and bridge the chasm between individuals by truly seeing my subjects and using the movement of my own body, through the act of drawing and painting, to interpret of the bodies of others. 

Have you always been creative? or Why did you start making art?

I have always been quite compulsive about the need to create, in singing and acting as well as visual art. The act of creating makes life interesting and exciting and helps me feel balanced and well. As early as I can remember, I drew. Making marks to express myself seemed natural and has always allowed me access to flow. I feel that in order to endure as a practicing artist for decades, one must be a little obsessive and compulsive. It’s integral to facing down the many deterrents and rejections an artist experiences, and continuing to make. 

I'm from Leicester, in the middle of the UK.

Tell us a bit about your practice. What Medium/Mediums do you work
in?

For the last 15 years, I've been gradually learning photography, so that's my main medium. But, photography has only recently become my full-time job. Before that, I was an engineer, building industrial computers. Of recent, my electronics & computer background has started to filter in some work with theatre companies, and some art. Also, I'm beginning to play with video but have yet to find my niche, there.

I collaborate a lot, with dancers and performance artists, mainly. Performance art has been a massive influence on how I think and create work, as well as the visual aesthetic I'm trying for.

Tell us a bit about your practice. What Medium/Mediums do you work
in?

My work is mixed media. I use acrylic, sometimes with added textural materials, to develop base coats and underpaintings. Oil paints and alcohol-based inks form subsequent layers.

I have shown extensively in Western Canada, but this is my first international exhibition!

I am fascinated by the layers of human stories and experiences, how our bodies have the capacity to express and reflect intense emotions and complex narratives. Many of my series develops around a theme that reflects the state of my own being, a statement that I try to expand upon, and make more interesting and relatable. Grief becomes figures suspended underwater, scrutiny and inner dialogue become reflections, elation is expressed in dancing children.

Painting is a discipline that has helped me put a structure to my creativity, which would otherwise be a kind of dreaminess and storytelling to myself. It helps me process my emotional experiences, and gives me the opportunity to ask questions and connect with others through the work.

The Langley Arts Council wants to thank Carol, Katarina, and David for the time they put aside to participate in this Q&A and for sharing a bit about themselves with us and our community. We also want to thank all of the artist who took their time to apply for this Call. The LAC thoroughly enjoyed our second Open International Call and are looking forward to strengthening and expanding our community, and putting out more calls and themes in the future! Interested in applying for a call? Click HERE view the LAC's calls to artists!