Veracity
Susan Goodyear
Brandon Vickerd
Dates Showing: January 7th - February 10th, 2001
Susan Goodyear explores her brother's experience of schizophrenia. Tightly stretched banners of white cloth display a grid of her brother's messages. The grid mimics the shape of a calendar, but each block of time is blank, suggesting the insignificance of regular perception of time. Systems and patterns commonly used to create order are presented as obstacles. After this first installation, the viewer reaches a corner lit by a bare light bulb. A wooden chair faces a great avalanche of paper, which cascades haphazardly down the walls and floor of the gallery. On the far-right side of each full sheet of 8"x 10" loose leaf is a note written by Goodyear's brother. Although hand-written, his notes are sometimes so similar that they appear to be carbon-copied. "Mom write me a note saying you will get me 20 wooden rings at the hardware store and also toothpicks." "Dad I want to get a tex-mex and fries because this is burger day and I haven't had my burger yet." "Can I walk to Zellers sometimes this week." The overwhelming flood of notes is a provocative entrance into how schizophrenia has drastically affected the artist's brother and his familial relationships.
Brandon Vickered, from Victoria, B.C., presents large animal skeletons that appear to be constructed from bone but are actually built from plaster. Having created plaster vertebrae, pelvises, leg bones, skulls and antlers, Vickered makes a point of noting that both bone and plaster share the root element calcium implying that he may be playing God, with tongue planted in cheek. "Actuality," he says, "is contrived and interchangeable. Truth has become a tale, the residue of an animal that has never been." One Vickered-born skeleton consists only of a curly spine with a horned head at either end. The antlers entwine and the skulls are inseparable, locked in an eternal dead-on gaze. Another skeleton sports a fat ribcage but no head or forelegs. The animal's two opposing pelvises and four knock-kneed legs brace against each other in a ridiculous state of codependency and conflict.
Notable words from the comment book:
"Supper Soon is amazing. I couldn't leave it for any more that five minutes and ended up sat on the floor in front of it lost in contemplation and wanting to go sit in the middle of it. Thanx for sharing it."
"An eloquent expression of the suffering and confusion - as well as the deep love and caring
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