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March 6th - 12th, 2003

Fiona Kinsella
by John Deal


Kinsella graduated from the University of Guelph with an honour’s BA from the Department of Fine Art and a diploma from the Department of Animation & Design at Sheridan College. Having the Red October group as one association on her roster exemplifies Kinsella’s interest in social action. The Transit gallery donates a share of their profits to the Hamilton Aids Network, as did the Red October group. Prescribing Behaviour has had a number of different manifestations. (Balance) is the most recent instalment of this series in which Kinsella discusses the nature, relationship and balance between culture and identity.

At the fulcrum of this discourse, Kinsella delicately juxtaposes a myriad of images, concepts and materials. Framed within museum shadow boxes are even numbers of duck eggs, often coming as a six pack. Cracked open on one side to form a display window, the eggs are emptied of their regular contents and now hold images that Kinsella uses to illustrate her dialogue. The eggs rest upon white, lace–fringed tablecloths, drawing connotations of domesticity. Altogether these works bear hermetic and ornate qualities while balancing kitsch imagery and natural materials.

There are many angles from which to consider reading these works. The imagery is appropriated from print and electronic media, both popular and obscure. Each of the images chosen by Kinsella fit into a dialogue about social structures. As cultures grow and expand, authoritative voices create institutions that embody social attitudes and interests appropriate to their agenda. These institutions both assist and deny access to particular trends, modalities and expressions according to their interests.

Consider George Washington, who bled to death on his sick bed at a time when bloodletting was once considered a routine procedure amongst the most educated of allopathic doctors. Today, this would be barbaric (although many common practices are questionable).

These attitudes change and are affected by many factors, including the institutions that are in place. If many of these institutions were not in place, our culture would not have a standard set of organizational and behavioural rules; chaos would ensue and eventually the necessary regulations would be put in place with authority. The delicate balance between regulation and tyranny affords us the freedoms we enjoy today but also, the terrors that pervade this planet. Often our attitudes and behaviours can cause for hilarious situations or threaten to escalate into full–blown war. Despite the regulation of trends, ideologies and the "schlock of the new", we are caught in an "ever–changing sameness" with only a slight hope of real progress and liberation.

With Kinsella’s poignant yet gentle stabs at the shell of our supple beings, our superficial behaviours become effaced and truths surface. Love, pain, anger, loss, war, fear, and oppression are all inscribed into Kinsella’s eggs. These hatchlings quietly prescribe their relationship to themselves, their own tired histories and us. Recontextualized for Kinsella’s narrative, each grouping has been set firmly into their positions wrapped in plastic. An often domestic product used to preserve leftovers, Kinsella appropriately packages these compositions to preserve their freshness for time immemorial.

What is most striking about these assemblages is how Kinsella is able to strip the images of their previous contexts and use them at her leisure. Her palette seems fresh and untarnished by nostalgic misgivings. Many familiar images are easily over–looked because they fit so properly in their composition. It is a difficult task to be able to use and manipulate mass media and set it apart from its prior obligations. Kinsella does doctor these images, layering and tinting them digitally which may provide this new birth. Their settings are obviously unique and by incorporating the egg form (one which is most ingenious) as a container Kinsella finds a means by which to contain their energy and a uniformity that is pleasing to the viewer.

Kinsella’s balancing act between commercial materials, cultural jargon, beautiful natural forms and ornate beds offers her audience a delightful and intriguing journey. Travelling along the thin line, warring with every insulting, tempting, savvy and raw quip from the cultural institutions makes one tired and leery. Kinsella is able to afford us a new approach and glowing insight into our nature and behaviour.

Prescribing Behaviour (Balance) has been exhibited in Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Minnesota.