ARTIST STATEMENT
This work is part of a series that I created when I was a younger woman and dealing with the issues of fertility, the possibility of unwanted pregnancy and social expectations. Being raised in a fundamentalist household, questions of faith, destiny and choice are explored in text, metaphoric figures and themes. In the end, family members stories, personal experience, and confessional journal entries are juxtaposed, bringing these diverse elements together, as I slowly awakened to my own personal beliefs and realities. The empowerment of autonomy over one’s own body cannot be stripped away. The poem for “A Woman’s Freedom” sums it up for me:
This represents freedom
This represents choice
This represents freedom
This represents my voice
Herein lies my power
My power, my body
My choices, my convictions
My joy, my shame
Free to do, free to act
Free to be.
Its man’s greatest fear.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Marijo Swick is a Canadian artist with a lifelong interest in genetics; the majority of her
work has revolved around the ideas of faith and science, particularly creation and
creation myth. Personal stories and writing figure prominently in her work as she explores these ideas and more.
She has exhibited across Ontario, in British Columbia and in the U.S. In 2007 she created her first public art piece, a painting for The Centre of Applied Genomics in Toronto and in 2011 a painting commissioned by the City of London for the International Epigenetics Conference “EpigeneticsEh!” held in London in May. She also has several public art works in and around London.
© Marijo Swick