Portrait of Me as my Grandmother's Faults, 1982

66" x 70" installed                                                 

acrylic on tin, acrylic on plexiglas, photostat, and oil on canvas                                                

Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery

The images that make up this piece are:

a) A painted enlargement of a tin-type photograph of my grandmother as a child, with each area painted over with white paint.

b) A photostatic enlargement of a Victorian photograph by W.W.Hooper, of Indian famine victims victims posed in studio style, over which I have painted on plexiglas white shapes copied from those that make up the image of the body of my grandmother copied from the tin-type.

c) A full-length nude painting of me by Toronto artist Andy Patton, over which I have placed a sheet of plexiglas. I have then painted white marks on the plexiglas to represent markings used by an African tribe to paint their bodies. For them body painting is a means to protect themselves and identify each other in the context of their society.