Artist
I am a Saskatoon based artist who works mainly in screen printing, but I also include papermaking, drawing and pottery in my practice. I recently graduated from the University of Saskatchewan (Double Honours BA, Studio Art/Art History) and am presently working as a Community Arts Program Instructor at the University of Saskatchewan.
In 2007 I studied art history, ceramics and Japanese language at Kansai Gaidai University near Osaka, Japan, and learned about the idea of wabi-sabi - the recognition of beauty in simplicity, intimacy, imperfection, asymmetry and natural processes. This core aesthetic of traditional Japanese art has had a significant influence on my own art work, and when I returned to Canada and started exploring papermaking I continued to connect with the wabi-sabi idea that greatness exists in inconspicuous and overlooked details.* The paper I have been making, with its subtle variations in texture and colour, recycled materials, and laborious, yet intensely rewarding process, has confirmed that one can find great satisfaction in creating simple, delicate, subtly refined works of art.
I like to incorporate pure, transparent colours, and everyday imagery into my work. Print advertising, words from a cereal box, Japanese signs, cityscapes, and figures from old photographs all provide stimulating visual material to relish and manipulate as I choose. Screen printing allows me to create polished and precise images, providing an interesting contrast to the rougher natural look of the handmade paper. The lightness and transparency of the screen printing ink ensures that the paper is not overpowered by the image. The impact of the work results from both what I do on the paper and how this is integrated with the intrinsic qualities of the paper itself.
* Wabi-sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. Leonard Koren. 1994
Contact
Email: jilliancyca@gmail.com