As Above, So Below
Gillian King, MFA, Art Therapy Student (TATI)
Ottawa, ON
Gillian is a painter, art educator, and art therapist-in-training from Treaty One Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba and holds an MFA from the University of Ottawa (2016). She has shown in galleries and participated in residencies nationally and internationally. Her work has been featured in including Border Crossings, Canadian Art, CBC Gem, and Create! Magazine. Gillian is in the process of obtaining her art therapy diploma through the Toronto Art Therapy Institute, and works with seniors living in long term care at Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre as well as CareFor Health and Community Services in Ottawa, ON (photo by Julia Martin).
With this new series of work, Gillian King bears witness to patterns that entangle lifeforms at different scales. A reference to the phrase used in many belief systems, including Tarot, astrology, and sacred geometry, the series’ title invites us to look up and down, to recognize how the microcosm and the macrocosm behave alike, mirroring one other. Equally, it is a call to look around to recognize the myriad ways in which all life on Earth – human and other-than-human – is mutually dependent. On the heels of a global pandemic that lays bare our shared porosities and vulnerabilities and intensifies deadly consequences of interrelated global crises ranging from racial capitalism to climate catastrophe and species extinction, As Above, So Below takes on even greater meaning. It begs us to consider the webs and relations of care that are necessary for all species’ mutual survival and thriving.
An interplay of chaos and control marks each canvas. Ceding some agency to the unpredictability of natural dyeing processes, King collaborates with her materials and their diverse temporalities. Rather than controlling non-human life forms, as is dominant in this era marked by extractivism and anthropocentrism, King honours the agency, life, and death of her collaborators. The dye process for each canvas resulted in a powerful symmetry, above and below, side to side, that echoes patterns in nature. You may recognize these symmetries as natural geometries in our human bodies, moth wings, and pollen, to name a few. You may also recognize familiar textures – ones that stir up images of melting snow, eroding rock, sand, soil, and moss formations on the ground as much as they do images of celestial textures like clouds, stars, and the milky way.
Painted shapes in Lamb’s Ear echoes the velvety leaves of the beloved plant of the same name, as well as the ears of lambs themselves. Arachnoid, with its vibrant green lines arching outward also evoke spider-like shapes, resonating with arachnids, spider-plants, and architectural forms alike. Meanwhile, in Alveoli, the reddish cochineal stains evoke the tiny air sacs in our lungs that exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide into our bloodstream. Considered together, these works speak and breathe with one another, from gardens to respiratory systems, bubbling with stories of life.
Text by Gabrielle Doiron, MA, PHD Student in Human Geography (Toronto, On)