The next exhibition at Headbones Gallery consists of two separate bodies of work, Cautionary Tales by Diane Feught and mIndIng … by Johann Feught, all new works completed over the past two years.
The Kelowna couples exhibit opens at Vernon’s Headbones Gallery on Saturday, Oct. 5 with a public reception from 2-5 p.m. with the artists in attendance and runs until Nov. 30.
Diane and Johann each have significant separate careers within the arts; most recently Diane as an independent graphic designer and Johann as associate professor in Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBCO from 2001 to 2013.
Diane and Johann, each working on these separate bodies of work from respectively secluded studios, bring attention to illuminations of the mind. Diane orders, beautifies and presents. Johann clusters, combines, encompasses. They have had interesting personal lives, Diane with a dedication to Buddhism and Johann, born in Germany, with his early roots growing up in the aftermath of the Second World War. Diane continues to follow a Buddhist path and Johann has taught and shown extensively in Germany.
Diane works in gouache, a translucent water-based paint, on paper. With consideration, she sets a stage through a wide patterned border that compliments the subject. The work is polite. She has allowed room to wonder and despite the relatively diminutive size of this window on life, each work is completely unalterable. It relies on magnetic attraction between the incompleteness of existence and the coveted closure of the imagery.
The dynamics of viewing a miniature – intimacy, secrecy and privacy formally disclosed – connects the subject to the objectivity of viewing and appeals in line with the information the audience brings to the subject. Although beauty dominates the appreciation of Diane’s works, the effort to gain this admiration has been as risky as a high wire act. It takes a practiced confidant commitment to dare to the exactness of pattern and gouache only forgives effort. Her technical acumen communicates the phenomenology of perfection: Diane Feught has painted these exquisite scenes and because life is fraught with mistakes, a confrontation with perfect execution is satisfying. Each piece is convincing, elegant, un-alterable and precise. There is no inclination to rearrange the furniture.
Johann is a master print maker with a life-long commitment to furthering the practice including introducing toxic-free printmaking into the studio. His new series of digital and marmoleum prints brings forth a collection of individually cut gems. The precision required to cut a diamond is similar to the process he employs in his marmoleum cutting , a pithy and often painful process where the physical and the mental must be in sync. It is through the interruption of the surface of the block that the resolution of an image is brought forth and then printed. Since the reverse of the mark making is the outcome; it is an acrobatic act in mindfulness. The messiness of memory gains impact through Johann’s masterful use of the medium. Again, as at the circus, the twists, turns, flips and reverses only work if the athletics completely win over the spectator.
In the digital works color, rendering, use of space and placement of information demands a masterful performer in order to maintain significance. And to pull from the mind such a successful opus also requires a deep knowledge of self.
And although Diane and Johann had no awareness of the body of work the other was completing during their respective processes, like osmosis, messages drifted between the two studios in a way that validates truth in equanimity yet sustains individuality. Creation is always private but when oneness overrides, it becomes art.
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