ARTIST STATEMENT
“She stood at the precipice, feet rooted to the spot,
her back to the noisy city,
facing the endless void of time ahead.
She screamed into the wind,
eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched, throat open,
rage bubbling to the surface,
“TWO STEPS FORWARD, THREE STEPS BACK!!!”
* * *
The problem with being on the side of the fence that supports fairness, human compassion, equality, peace and respect for each other, is that you are often up against opponents that are purposely unfair, have no empathy, want to fight for the sake of it, and are disrespectful assholes. It’s hard to win fights like that.
That women could lose the constitutional right to abortion, in this day and age, after having it decreed a basic human necessity 49 years ago….is deeply embarrassing. Embarrassing for all: for the women, for the men, for the Americans, for the whole world.
Are we ever going to live this down? How much longer are we going to tolerate this kind of bullshit?
Here we are in 2023, and women are still not legally considered people; we are unqualified to make major life-changing decisions on our own; we are not to be trusted to understand our own bodies/lives/needs/capabilities; we are unworthy of any forgiveness or leeway for mistakes made, we are, ultimately, stupid, confused children. Thank goodness we have laws written by those who have zero relevant experience to dictate our choices.
To quote Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality (2000):
“It’s like feminism never even happened, y’know?””
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Chris Cowan is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in the Ottawa Valley, in Ontario, Canada.
Chris’ art practice is untethered and dynamic, drawing from an obsessive fascination with the history of human visual art making, filtered through too much institutionalized conceptual fine arts education, and rooted in a sincere and joyful love of tactile, textured, colourful, sparkly, shinny things.
Chris works in a wide variety of media, including, but not limited to: oil, acrylic, gouache and watercolour paints, latex house paint, pencil, markers, pen and ink, punch needle embroidery, photography, video, sound, lithography, intaglio, woodcut and book binding.
Trains of thought that have dominated Chris’ subject matter include keywords such as: word mythology, sadomasochism, displacement, home, cultural otherness, kinbaku, feminism, the sacred and the profane, dreams, somnambulism, comic art, and oil paintings as illustration of dominant cultural narratives in a pre-photographic society.
Chris earned her Bachelors of Fine Art in Interdisciplinary Arts at NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and her Masters of Fine Arts in Oil Painting at the Kyoto City University of Arts in Kyoto, Japan. She also holds diplomas of Japanese language and Canadian Immigration Law.
She lives with her husband, son, a very old miniature dachshund with a heart murmer, a billion house plants, and a yard full of chipmunks and salamanders in Deep River, Ontario.
© Chris Cowan