This painting from April 2020 is a self-portrait with Covid fighters.

Before masking. Before even the idea of a vaccine. Confined to our homes. Getting groceries seemed hazardous. Line up outside. People, like zombies, throwing everything they could into the cart.

Don’t touch your face. Stay inside. Keep six feet away from others at all times. Wash your hands for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice. Bleach everything.

No singing.

I had just opened “The Little Lost Operas” in Toronto, March 12, 2020. There was a live opera singer. I’d made the paintings a year before Covid. Suddenly they were prescient.

The gallery was shut down on the second day of the exhibition. A few private viewings. I had wanted to re-stage the opera singer, talk to more people. Maybe someday I’ll get to exhibit it again. I fantasized that my little opera puppets and their paintings carried on amongst themselves in the quiet gallery. I even had a film in mind for them in which they danced from set to set getting up to all sorts of shenanigans.

Art changed, seems like overnight. A mere two and a half years later. No going back. Flat images on retinal screens have taken over over our minds? EEK! A Virtual Exhibition. EEK!

I need to be in museums and galleries looking at real art. Real art. Moving around the work. Looking up close. Feeling the energy coming off the work. Seeing other people. Art of unknown meaning out there to discover. Constantly mind-blowing.

Video documentation of The Ghost from The Little Lost Operas. 2020. Acrylic on panel, fabric, wood, paper, used clothing.

Video documentation of Her Deathbed from The Little Lost Operas. 2020. Acrylic on panel, used clothing, wood, paper.

Posted: December 9, 2022