Laura Widmer
Local(i)ty 2 at Gallery 2 Grand Forks, BC
Laura Widmer has focused a new attention to paper. Traditionally, paper is the structural support for the transfer of a printed image. Widmer has begun to make her own paper. She has embedded text into the paper pulp, and this method interests her as she sees this as a foiled message – the text is rewritten through the pulp vat. Widmer used the poem titled A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf by Bronwen Wallace[viii]. Widmer excels in these laborious processes as she feels the processes mirrors our human condition; a process that becomes a metaphor for the search for the ultimate meaning of life.
The works in this exhibition are the result of the artist’s ongoing cultural production since 2012.
Artist Statement:
Paper as material, surface and object has fascinated me for as long as I can remember and it is the usual support material for my print-based works. In 2014, I completed a residency at the Banff Centre in the papermaking studio and began to focus on the idea of working “in” paper as opposed to simply working “on” it. As a result, I am thinking of the page less as an anonymous flat support and more as a specific meeting space, the physical, three-dimensional location where idea and viewer intersect.
This way of thinking has shifted some of my more traditional print-based works into subtly sculptural explorations. In this context I am not printing multiples with the goal of creating an edition of identical original pieces. Rather, the multiple provides opportunity for repetition and iteration and underlining of an idea, and I can customize my handmade paper for its specific purpose.
I am increasingly conscious of the relationships between the technical, conceptual and material aspects of my work. Because of this, some of my work is moving toward a visual experience that is not simply sitting on the surface of the paper, it is the paper.
“A Simple Poem For Virginia Woolf” is an example of this. I developed this work by manipulating pulp and inclusions at the very instant the sheet of paper is formed. I have cut out each of the words in Bronwen Wallace’s poem of the same title and used the words as inclusions in my papermaking vat; the entirety of the poem appears in each individual sheet of paper, however, the poem literally rewrites itself on the page as each sheet is formed and the words settle into place. The process is repeated with the same ingredients: paper pulp and the same poem, yielding a different result each time. These small works are meant to emulate the book page, the intimate space where reader and the original poem would have typically encountered one another, much like our brief meeting here.
NOTES:
[viii] Bronwen Wallace (1945-1989) was a Canadian poet and short story writer who was interested in Feminist Theory and Social Activism.
Laura Widmer has focused a new attention to paper. Traditionally, paper is the structural support for the transfer of a printed image. Widmer has begun to make her own paper. She has embedded text into the paper pulp, and this method interests her as she sees this as a foiled message – the text is rewritten through the pulp vat. Widmer used the poem titled A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf by Bronwen Wallace[viii]. Widmer excels in these laborious processes as she feels the processes mirrors our human condition; a process that becomes a metaphor for the search for the ultimate meaning of life.
The works in this exhibition are the result of the artist’s ongoing cultural production since 2012.
Artist Statement:
Paper as material, surface and object has fascinated me for as long as I can remember and it is the usual support material for my print-based works. In 2014, I completed a residency at the Banff Centre in the papermaking studio and began to focus on the idea of working “in” paper as opposed to simply working “on” it. As a result, I am thinking of the page less as an anonymous flat support and more as a specific meeting space, the physical, three-dimensional location where idea and viewer intersect.
This way of thinking has shifted some of my more traditional print-based works into subtly sculptural explorations. In this context I am not printing multiples with the goal of creating an edition of identical original pieces. Rather, the multiple provides opportunity for repetition and iteration and underlining of an idea, and I can customize my handmade paper for its specific purpose.
I am increasingly conscious of the relationships between the technical, conceptual and material aspects of my work. Because of this, some of my work is moving toward a visual experience that is not simply sitting on the surface of the paper, it is the paper.
“A Simple Poem For Virginia Woolf” is an example of this. I developed this work by manipulating pulp and inclusions at the very instant the sheet of paper is formed. I have cut out each of the words in Bronwen Wallace’s poem of the same title and used the words as inclusions in my papermaking vat; the entirety of the poem appears in each individual sheet of paper, however, the poem literally rewrites itself on the page as each sheet is formed and the words settle into place. The process is repeated with the same ingredients: paper pulp and the same poem, yielding a different result each time. These small works are meant to emulate the book page, the intimate space where reader and the original poem would have typically encountered one another, much like our brief meeting here.
NOTES:
[viii] Bronwen Wallace (1945-1989) was a Canadian poet and short story writer who was interested in Feminist Theory and Social Activism.