My work deals with aspects of place/lessness. I created an installation called Nowhereness. It was inspired by the alienation and ensuing dementia often witnessed in elderly people either living isolated and alone, or in institutions.
Characters/ Heads © Margie Kelk: Ceramic, Dimensions Variable, 2010-12
The ceramic heads were used in Nowhereness to represent isolated individuals, perhaps the elderly, perhaps the demented people who are locked away in residences or who lock themselves away in rooms devoid of social interaction.
The world beyond them is one of virtual connections engineered through technology. Sites like Facebook and Twitter serve as conduits for social interaction in today’s world, but these individuals exist in a social void.
They have no connection to the evolving forms of virtual relationships within which we are increasingly involved on an everyday level.
Nowhereness © Margie Kelk: Installation, Red Head Gallery, 2012, Village, Ceramic, Dimensions Variable, 2010-12, Screenings/iPads, Plexiglas, ceramic, 13” x 17” 2010-12
There is irony in this: in a world in which humanity has never been so interconnected by virtue of technology and social networking sites, these people may never have been so alone. They live separated,and exist in a sterile universe of loneliness.
Mirrors © Margie Kelk: Encaustic and Ceramic on Wood, 13” x 13”, 13” x 17” 2010-12
Image Credits
All Images Are © Margie Kelk
Margie Kelk Artist Bio
Toronto based visual artist Margie Kelk’s artistic practice reflects contemporary concerns about cultural history and politics. Kelk takes an exploratory and experimental approach as she appropriates and reconstructs visual fragments of ideas through diverse artistic media that include ceramic sculpture, installation, drawing and painting, video and photography. She has been exhibiting her work in Canada since 2000.
Margie Kelk has been showing in Canada, the United States and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include Beyond Absurd (2010), Nowhereness (2012) and Swarf (2013) at the Red Head Gallery, Toronto, Ontario and Nowhereness (2014) at Artcite, Incorporated, Windsor, Ontario. In 2012 Margie Kelk was featured in a three-page essay in FUSION Magazine titled Margie Kelk: Nowhereness by Gil McElroy.
She has received prizes for several of her works, and has been awarded grants by the Ontario Arts Council. Kelk is a graduate of Wellesley College, The Johns Hopkins University (PhD.), and the Toronto School of Art degree program.
Blog / Website: MargieKelk.com
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I really enjoy the work created by this featured artists, Margie Kelk! Thank you for sharing!!!