skin deep, or poetry for the blind
Nadia Myre
September 10 - October 7, 2005


Nadia Myre, skin deep, or poetry for the blind, gallery installation, 2005

Wounds • Desire • Language
Over the last decade my work has dealt with issues of language, desire, loss and identity. What started as a practice of subversive acts: spray-painting double entendre, sexual innuendos and poetic come-ons across the city landscape, evolved to painting scars that stand in for words on canvases that have been slit then stitched. Between these two treatments of language, exist a myriad of others as text is stenciled, projected, painted, beaded over, translated, codified, and absented. What remains is the personal and collective memory of a language wound - the desire to scratch a painful scar - the wounded space between people.

Nadia Myre, skin deep, or poetry for the blind, gallery installation, 2005

In this work, love, want, hurt and loss - the complex exprience and narrative of desire within interpersonal relationship is expressed in various languages and visual signifiers. A broken line, sewn into the canvas and painted with glazes of oil colour and ash reveals Everything I know about love... Emerging from the blue night sky (or deep ocean) of ‘Till it Hurts are star-like pimple shapes sewn into the canvas to create Braille. Once decoded, the paintings’ text is raw with pain, the poetry un-poetic. In Coda Construction prose is interwoven with survival languages (ground to air signals, and Morse code) to create a multilingual narrative of distress. Each language is treated differently, the S-O-S signal in Morse code is etched in aluminum, the ground to air signals are scarred in the canvas and painted, and an English poem is handwritten and embossed on white paper. Together they create the following layered narrative: (help) you loved (unable to move) as a child (help) lost, in the thick of wood [do not understand] (help) [need assistance] haunted, (help) by a slew [need compass and map] of ghastly creatures (help). In each of these works surface language is explored and played with, adding to decode its message; a reflection of our ability to read situations and people in our daily lives.

Nadia Myre lives and works in Montreal. She recieved an MFA in sculpture from Concordia University, Montreal (2002); a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver (1997); and an Associate Degree in Fine Arts from Camosun College, Victoria (1995). Solo exhibitions include skin deep, or poetry for the blind, Art Mur, Montreal (2004); Cont(r)act, Galerie Oboro, Montreal (2002); Indian Act, grunt gallery, Vancouver (2002); and Riding Lines, Indian Art Centre, Hull, Quebec (2001).

Recent group exhibitions include The American West, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, England (2005); Au Files de Mes Jours, Musee National des beaux-arts du Quebec (2005); Encounters, Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon (2004); Thinking Textiles, Richmond Arts Gallery, Richmond, BC (2003); Fabrics of Change/Trading Identities, University of Wollongong and Flinders University, Australia (2004); Political Acts, Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, Ontario; Hurry Quickly, Or Gallery, Vancouver (2004); Beyond Words, Bishops University, Lennoxville (2004); and Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax (2003).