Women's Post
March 2003
Art Review

A Return of Beauty in Art
by Kevin Somers


Educators use the term "disequilibrium" to describe one's state following the introduction of new information which hasn't yet been assimilated and integrated into existing knowledge. Disequilibrium is often associated with anxiety, which is what I first experienced at Fiona Kinsella's Prescribing Behaviour (Balance), currently showing in Hamilton. Kinsella uses rich, dark, museum-style boxes, delicately trimmed with Victorian egg and dart moulding, to frame and contain her work.

At first sight of one, an image of tiny, rural museums capturing a pioneer essence came to my mind. I recalled the apprehension of shuffling through national heritage sites as dour women in period clothes scowled at my curious brother and I. The rural curators, undoubtably the sombre guides with the dagger eyes, would have arranged the points of interest for aesthetic excellence, and little boys weren't to be trusted. The inevitable velvet ropes reminded us what we knew explicitly: look (reflecting is optional), but don't touch.

As with rooms that aren't lived in, there is an ethereal purity to Kinsella's pieces; they are, for the most part, white, they're stark, and they're under glass. As one settles into a specific box, the eye is drawn to the centre, where six small snatches of colour break up the dominant white. Leaning in, (subconsciously, perhaps, over the velvet rope) we see the colours are actually appropriated images aligned and centred perfectly, inside eggshells. The curious range of images is from Judy Garland, to instruments of science, to simple smears of reds and yellows, and they are at odds with our expectations. What is this?

Slowly, incongruity gives way to whimsy: it's as if the lady in the period piece; a bonnet tied tightly under her chin, has smiled at you. And, suddenly, you're smiling back. The images are in duck eggs; each one broken open sufficiently to frame the small pictures. A duck egg is similar in size and colour to a chicken's, but with a subtle speckling of blue that gives it a ceramic quality and beauty. The eggs, which are immaculately centred, rest on a background of coffin-like, white lace fabric, reviving the morbid museum theme. The eggs and cloth are shrink-wrapped, so there is a Pavlovian-like desire to tear the thin film of plastic open and examine the contents. The materials, seemingly incongruous together, flow from the centre fluidly and beautifully.

Kinsella seems interested in intricately documenting and preserving the absurdities of an instant, or an epoch. Just as change slowly evolves into routine, the boxes (and there are a lot of them) are similar, but distinguishable in details: each a small museum; incongruous, but immaculately put together. As she admitted with a sly grin, they are meant to be funny. Nicely done. Fiona Kinsella's Prescribing Behaviour is showing at The Transit Gallery, 230 Locke St, Hamilton, from March 4 - 30, 2003. The gallery, like the street, is a nice example of the eclectic charm in a city not always noted for such delicacies. The gallery's phone number is 905-522-1299.