Lois Andison

an accumulated life

September 7, 2019 – October 5, 2019

This exhibition holds at its core the exploration of what Lois describes as ‘an accumulated life’. After decades of art-making, the artist reflects on her process both professionally and personally. The show engages issues of identity and the building of identity, it confronts aging, illness, and death. It reflects on personal agency, on holding fast and letting go. Lois beautifully negotiates the path between past and present, exploring her own history as a means of finding resolution in her own narrative. In this exhibition, Lois has turned the lens on mortality, focusing on ephemeral materials – paper, glass, mirror, kinetic sculpture – to dematerialize the object and bring the viewer closer to the meaning than the medium. She has sifted through a lifetime of what we carry, what we hold on to, what we let go of and what, in the end, we keep.

The mirror series began as a memorial project, reminiscent of tombstones. The shape and nature of the sandblasted mirror includes recognizable phrases from songs that read like epitaphs, and a horizon that draws the eye downwards while reflecting the sky. The viewer can see themselves the same way we all recognize our own mortality while standing in a cemetery, but the words aren’t for us. The mirrors reference both family and friends who have passed; through this piece which represents both a tombstone and a window or portal to another place, she honours them.

“It was a rare moment years ago when my brother expressed his inner feelings. I wish I could remember his exact words. He was speaking about music and how musicians were artists who put “your” experience into words and in doing so they told all our stories. He loved Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison – songs with narratives that celebrated life and lived through pain.”

Sandblasted on to four individual pieces of glass, TIME CHANGED NOT YOU is grounded in humanity as being a thing of perpetual change while playing with that classic breakup line we’ve all used at one time or another. Placed on a shelf positioned in the daylight, sun passes through the glass to project the words in shadow on the wall behind. By virtue of the earth’s rotation and the shifting of the light, the shadowed text moves across the wall while the glass itself remains unchanged.

Throughout her life, Lois kept in her possession a collection of ephemera – cards, letters, notes, and photos – sent to her which she stored diligently. In the digital age, the idea of physical paper or material letters and images has become a novelty rather than a necessity. For this piece, Lois chose to respond to every letter in her possession, giving them the time required to recall memories and relive experiences long since passed. Suspended inside hinged acrylic cases, the right side holds letters, cards, and photos while the left side carries each response (typed by Lois’ sister on her IBM Selectric II Typewriter, for which the artist is extremely grateful).

The act of response out-of-time reconnects Lois to various moments, relationships, events, and conversations in her own history. It creates loops like an emotional time machine, which held space for the artist to slip in and out of time, engaging in who she was then and making peace with the person she is today.