Relief, Push, Woe (RYB) is a site specific assemblage of various materials including paintings, a wall drawing, astroturf, recycled cutouts of paintings, and text. The phenomenological nature of this work relies on language as a point of entry. During the Covid-19 isolation periods I kept a log of words to describe how I felt during this time. This associative word play was used as a jumping off for constructing digital collages which serve as the reference for the three paintings. I wanted to keep them urgent, focused, and shallow in their sense of depth. Viewers are denied access beyond a flat plane of colour. The paintings sit on top of a hand drawn graphite and ink wall treatment. An image suggestive of broken glass is both a nod to the architecture of the window space, and a gesture of violence drawn from recent images of civil unrest. On the floor in front of the wall is a scattering of various things; painted cutouts of flowers, a smiley face, a note from a recent sketchbook, and woven flowers bought as souvenirs from Mexico. They sit on top of an oval piece of artificial turf. For me, these objects and motifs communicate a kind of empathy and longing for a more effervescent time.
Connor is a BFA graduate from UBC Okanagan campus who completed his MFA at the University of Victoria in 2018.
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