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Student : Faculty : Alumni : Local : National
Sheena Graham-George & Jen Townsend
The Exquisite Corpse
The Orkney Museum
October 7-28, 2006
Exquisite Corpse is the natural outcome for two artists, Sheena Graham George, MFA '01, and Jen Townsend, MFA '02, who discovered (through a chance meeting at Grad School) that they shared the same fundamental aesthetic sensibilities. Much to their delight, they discovered the resulting imagery, that threads its way through their work, is fed from the same dark subterranean sources.
This project is based upon the Surrealist parlor game, “cadaver exquis” or “exquisite corpse”. Usually played by several people, the game relies upon the elements of accident and chance to form a collage of words or images which are imbued with their own set of meanings. Traditionally one person draws an image on the edge of a piece of paper then folds it over on itself so only the edge of the drawing is showing. It is then passed to the next person who repeats the process, culminating in the paper being unfolded revealing the resulting collective drawing, which invariably has a strange and often dream like quality.Spanning a two-year period, a Trans-Atlantic story will unravel, manifesting as a rich multi faceted body of work that unites both artists’ distinct disciplines. The rules of the game are simple. One artist produces a piece but sends only a fragment of the image plus a sentence or two relating to the narrative of the work. The corresponding artist uses these fragments to construct an answering image and textual response, thus continuing the tale. The resulting exhibition will be comprised of paintings, tabletop sculptures, jewellery objects, and a narrative text, which ties the work together into a dark and beautiful opus.
Review of the show.
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