Multiverses

The concept of alternative universes has taken on new significance for me during the pandemic and the years of social and political upheaval that have followed. As the parent of a small child, I am keenly aware of how different the course of her life has been from what I imagined, and also of the larger events shaping the future of her generation. 

 

This project began as I walked around my neighbourhood, taking photographs of fallen leaves, frozen ice, and rippling puddles. Then, back in my studio, I painted canvases with fierce colours and strokes, then photographed those paintings. In Photoshop, I combined my photographs of nature and of my paintings, creating fantastical layer upon layer. The final step, digital drawing, involved scraping away one layer to reveal the other underneath. Multiple layers formed different universes, one visible through the cracks in another. In the resulting compositions, I recognised the friction between a personal landscape that was deep with grief and the vibrancy of the imagined life I missed. 

 

The pandemic has ended but the chaos of the world seems only to have increased. I continue to feel the dissonance between what is and what could be, and it is too vast. But then, in Multiverses, I see my own fractured consciousness reflected, and for a moment, to visualize it is enough. I can see my own life and the larger world as it is now, while still touching back to the hopes of the past, and imagining a different future.