The Relativity of Time and Space

Artist Statement

04/22

To make intentional work is to live an intentional life. Make use of what your everyday offers you (Rilke). Take notice of the places that often go missed: the uncomfortable silence and the banal in-betweens. Engage. Check-in and reflect. This is where the visual language of construction begins. Recognise when demolition is necessary and rid yourself of the things, the places, the ideas that are no longer of use; deconstruct in order to rebuild. Resist defining the destruction as good or bad, and embrace the beautiful disarray; it is not disarray. Trust that everything is necessary. 

Build towards something good: love, connection, and purpose. Remember, how we build represents what we value (Peter Singer). Let go of the old agendas and embark on a new journey (bell hooks). Let go of the image of what you think that journey will look like, or how the practice will unfold. Show up and create. Just show up. Remain open to the beauty: the chaotic unravelling of grief, capital-L Love, inner conflict, and growth. 

Don’t focus on making a statement, don’t tell a specific story. Follow intuition. Trust that what is inside of you, all that is important will come out. When you don’t know what next step to make, leave it. Surrender choice to the future. The composition will come, rarely at once, be patient, watch it unfold and respond to the natural flow. Be water. Be malleable with this flow.  

Observe constantly that all things take place by change (Marcus Aurelius).  The landscape, the earth, the flowers, the green signify transition. Sunflowers are Love. Walk the city, experience space, take different routes. Run through the city, look inwards, experience love. The landscape that unfolds in front of us is best known by understanding the energy that runs through us. Embrace the search. The search for home, for structure and stability, but ultimately, whether it is in the mind, the ether, or the ever-expanding universe, a connection to some higher truth. 

Link to Graduate Thesis:

Creating Structure: The Complexity of Making, Dwelling, and Being. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76281

Biography

Lindsay Kirker is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist and writer. Drawing on recurring themes of love, loss, demolition, and rebuilding, the built environment in Kirker’s large-scale landscape paintings acts as a metaphor to explore the spectrum of human experience and our need for stability during times of uncertainty. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, her work has been exhibited in Canada, France, and India. She has received support from The Audain Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, and La Napoule Art Foundation. Kirker has taught painting at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and in 2023, was invited as a delegate for the Future of Learning collaborative with the University of Pennsylvania, and as a visiting scholar to teach Visual Art and Design in Northern India.