War
WAR is very much a reflection of my thoughts and feelings on our modern-day experience of it. TV-REFLECTIONS IN/OF comments on the images we receive into our bedrooms through television. The nature of the medium itself is to create a distancing effect. It ‘s cool, as is our experience of it. OF THE WRONG STRIPE alludes to the Japanese internment camps we had here in Canada, a world turned inside out: the vulnerability of children and animals. A QUESTION OF HONOUR presents young soldiers from an “old” war charging over a contemporary globe. The enthusiasm registered on their faces reflects the stark reality that “no 18 year old thinks he is going to die”. THE DANCE juxtaposes the beauty of a ballerina’s dance with the ballet of the jet fighter. ON A MIGHTY MISSION takes an image from a World War 1 magazine photo as its reference. Using a colorful palette to signify individuals they all begin to meld into a uniform grey-green as they move forward into battle, eventually becoming just a pencil line as they disappear into the distance.
Joan Murray, Curator of the exhibition, OLD WARS BY YOUNG ARTISTS, wrote in the catalogue “For Ferdinands, war is an amorphous evil. …….Her dreamlike scenes have a surprising, provocative edge – like some hallucinatory effect.
She brings to painting an intelligent, exploratory consciousness.”
