This photograph was captured in New Zealand and is a photo collage. The dreamy colours, textures, and imagery prompt the viewer to experience the memory through multiple senses. The image tells a story, at once deeply personal and profoundly universal.

“Howl I Remember You”, 2021
Alexis Marie Chute
Photography
16 in. x 20 in.

During the recent pandemic, galleries found new ways to engage both audiences and artists. One such event called for art in a drawer to a card catalogue cabinet. Old newspapers were my material of choice. The material not only held a historical value with a fleeting relevance, barely remembered days later, but also related to the cataloguing of stories. Story ConTEXT is a continuation of that project.

Old newspapers are bound into bundles which are cut and carved referencing their origin of wood which are further transformed by fire and water.

Story ConText, 2022
Audra Schoblocker, ASA
Wood, Paper, Mixed Media
32 in.x 7 in. x 3 in.

On a walk one cold winter’s night in 2021, I passed a church that seemed to sit directly below the moon. A light steam was rising from a grating that seemed to swirl about the church and upwards towards the moon. I was unable to capture this dream-like vision with my phone, and it haunted me until I was finally able to paint it nearly a year later. Was it the rising of some lost spirits once trapped, finally freed that night. Perhaps it was all a dream – when I try to recall it, it feels different every time, being bound to no specific memory, time, or place. It has become an event unto itself. Nothing else has ever felt so dream-like.

Fog Above the Moon, 2022
Byron McBride
Acrylic on shaped panel
32 in.x 18 in. x 1.5 in.

“My uncle suffered a tragic accident as a child leaving him severely handicapped and as a result he was unable to attend school leaving him illiterate. He lived with my grandparents and in his lonely world, he appeared to me to be an oddity that I couldn’t relate to. The title of this piece is a quote from Popeye who said “I am what I am and that is all that I am”. I think about my uncle frequently and what he could have been but in reality he was what he was and I regret not being a larger part of that.”

I AM WHAT I AM…, 2021
David Harrison, ASA
Mixed Media
17 in. x 14 in. 

What?

What? Memories are sensory more than anything. We associate certain activities with colors, smells or sounds. ‘When’ is a painting about how our memory is but a fast decaying store of visual information. The memories become intermixed and almost muddy or mixed up. Memories shuffle around and combine. We try hard to untangle this mess but do not always succeed. As age progresses this becomes harder. ‘When’ is about those times when we try to sort out what was said or who actually said that information we are trying to retrieve.

What?, 2022
Doris Charest, ASA
Mixed Media
12 in. x 12 in. x 3 in.

Who?

Memories are mostly about people too. This piece is the second part of my memory duo paintings. Like ‘When’, it is also about the fast-decaying store of information we keep trying to retrieve. We remember faces and not names. We forget where we met those people. For me, this has always been a challenge since we moved around a lot. You remember them but from which period of our life? Memories shuffle around and we need to sort them out. ‘Who’ is about reconnecting the face with the memory.

Who?, 2022
Doris Charest, ASA
Mixed Media
12 in. x 12 in. x 3 in.

Windows offer us a glimpse of another world. On the construction hoarding a collection of posters and graffiti build up over time. The images record the passage of time, document events and for some a collection of memories of their world as it happened over the time of the project. This particular wall actually looks back at the passers-by. A figure appears to gaze from a window opening, while a second dark opening seems to offer us an invitation to glimpse the imaginary world beyond.

Windows to Memories, 2022
E. Ross Bradley, ASA
Archival Digital Print
14.5 in. x 21 in.

Leave it to the Bard to have a quote for every occasion. Everybody Dreams. We spend roughly one third of our lives sleeping and during that time, we dream. What scientists do know is that just about everyone dreams every time they sleep. Dream characteristics and dream objects may be of an everyday nature or altogether fantastic and impossible collages of existing reality; they may behave normally or indulge in the most absurd, improbable or impossible actions in settings either familiar or bearing only the faintest resemblances to those of real life.

To Sleep Perchance to Dream, 2022
E. Ross Bradley, ASA
Archival Digital Print
14.5 in. x 21 in.

Who are individuals to the core? Umpisa (the beginning) goes back to ones’ fundamental roots to discover what is essential – one’s roots and background. Using a primary color scheme, red, yellow, blue, Umpisa (the beginning) illustrates an unidentifiable young woman wearing a traditional Filipino Maria Clara dress holding a monstera deliciosa plant. With nurture and care, the leaves subtly form the shape of a heart. While the background and strung flowers gently nod to Philippines’ melting pot of different cultures. This painting overall symbolizes embracing one’s very own identity and relationship with self.

Umpisa (The Beginning), 2022
Ethel Dalida
Archival Digital Print
40 in. x 30 in.

Last shards of awareness dissolve through the window of imagination flowing into the twilight of dreams. Anticipation and regret fleetingly coalesce then dissipate leaving only silhouettes and shadows. Candle of the present is quenched by the flight of caged memories. The chains of time’s boundaries hang broken but the luminance of dreams will soon fade into the starkness of reality once again. They are veiled to consciousness and often forgotten, yet our dreams quietly affirm that which one’s longing already understands.

Memories, Imagination and Dreams, 2022
Gary Sinclair
Constructed Digital Image
11 in. x 14 in.

The saddest thing about memory is that it can fade; even those whom we love the most, the memory can fade. We remember the love, the caring, and the feeling, but why can’t we remember her face?

This piece reflects on how the portraits in our minds can lose details of eyes and faces, but the thickness of the image recalls the complexity and the depth of the person, and our relationship to them, even if we can’t recall all their features.

I Can’t Remember Her Face Anymore, 2022
Gordon Carter (Associate ASA Member)
Wood Carving
14 in. x 11.5 in. x 2.5 in

This series of paintings are inspired by my MEMORY & DREAMS.

There is an ancient Chinese story. One day, Zhuangzi dreamed that he had become a butterfly. After waking up, he found that he was still Zhuangzi, so he didn’t know whether he was the butterfly who became Zhuangzi or the Zhuangzi who became a butterfly in his dream.

Through this work, I am asking:
Who are you?
Where are your from?
Where are you going?

Journey: Childhood, 2015
Jinzhe Cui
Ink on Paper
25 in. x 37 in.

This series of paintings are inspired by my MEMORY & DREAMS.

There is an ancient Chinese story. One day, Zhuangzi dreamed that he had become a butterfly. After waking up, he found that he was still Zhuangzi, so he didn’t know whether he was the butterfly who became Zhuangzi or the Zhuangzi who became a butterfly in his dream.

Through this work, I am asking:
Who are you?
Where are your from?
Where are you going?

Journey: Adolescence, 2015
Jinzhe Cui
Ink on Paper
25 in. x 37 in.

Mists

Mysterious mists

allow only deceptive

future peeks at best.

La Brume

La brume cache le vraie.

Déception rend difficile

le juste discernement.

Eph 5 :6a

Humid mists enclose the soul soothing walks amid the liquid lush greenery. I miss our creative vacations. Just my mother and me.

La pluie nourrit la terre. La brume l’enveloppe avec une courtepointe faite des couleurs neutres, aimante, protective. Ma mère me manque et nos vacances ensemble.

Mists/Brume, 2020
Karen Blanchet
Mixed Media
24 in. x 24 in.

Let’s start at the top. Is it glasses or a bridge, we see? Who knows. It could be both. Aren’t glasses a connection just like the symbolic function of a bridge? To see clearly in a dream is not a possibility, but do we have a better chance with memories?

We often ask ourselves if we did right or wrong. The angel and daemon are upside down and floating in space. We go over our decisions again and again and it is usually the unresolved events that pop up in dreams.

All in Her Head, 2022
Liv Pedersen, ASA
Tapestry weaving with cotton warp, weft of wool & acrylic yarn
16.5 in. x 16.5 in.

The sibyls were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece that go back to the eleventh century BC.

During the sitting, Phyllis recalled a full rich life at almost 90 within a context of melancholy and humble wisdom I don’t think she was aware of. In speaking with her afterward, she did share that the telling of her stories in our safe sitting space provided some unexpected revelations.

Memories are peoples’ evolving life stories that define them. Could we resolve past dystonic traits through the lens of lived experience and wisdom?

I believe Phyllis has something to say about that…

Phyllis Sibyl, 2022
Mary Whale, ASA
Watercolour
15 in. x 13 in.

The dolls represent all the masks we wear. We are never ourselves in our fantasies. We are more loved, wanted, stronger, healthier.

This work is from a series that explored storybook romanticism. Focused on couples of various types and the elevated feelings often associated with feelings of love and lust.

In this painting, the subjects are falling together as the world goes by.

Falling Amongst Paper Butterflies, 2022
Michael Grills
Acrylic on Canvas
40 in. x 24 in.

“Different Kinds of Dusk” is a piece I made based on the idea of wanting to preserve moments in time. I created this piece using digitally painted illustrations I’ve made and then collaged together to represent these events. With so many beautiful memories being made throughout life it can feel daunting to think of how to capture specific moods and feelings for times I want to revisit. This piece shows the dream-like qualities that these memories take on, while capturing the emotions of peace, tranquility, and contentment I experienced in those moments.

Different Kinds of Dusk, 2022
Rachel Denbina
Illustrated Collage
14.75 in. x 24 in.

“In Flux, It’s Still You” was created as a form of healing while I’ve been faced with many changes and a sense of uncertainty in life. Throughout it all I’ve been left wondering about aspects of my own personality and goals. As I attempt to self-reflect I reminisce on memories of what has brought me joy in the past, and the ephemeral idea of “identity” as a whole. This work represents memories, dreams, and my imagination in various moments, coming together to form a sense of identity and emotion in the present, as I continue to find myself in flux.

In Flux, It’s Still You, 2022
Rachel Denbina
Illustrated Collage
14.75 in. x 24 in.