Lauren Chipeur
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Lauren Chipeur in her studio during her artist residency at Medalta, in Medicine Hat, Canada (Photo: J K Farrell)
Lauren Chipeur, ream-ing, 2019. Porcelain document with iron oxide print from toner.
At the end of February and beginning of March, I was installing a show in the FOFA Gallery at Concordia University in Montréal. I travelled back to Calgary on March 10 as the anxiety induced by the pandemic started to set in. The show closed after about a week of being open. The works continue to occupy the vitrine in a very public thoroughfare that offers access to both the university and a central metro station.
I often forget that this work is still in the gallery. Is the presence of people really the difference between a gallery and storage space?
The Covid-19 pandemic has been revealing. In lifting the veil cast by productivity and distraction, it has created the time and space for us to reflect on our relationships to each other and our world. My hope is that this shift can have lasting, lived consequences but only time will tell. The complexity of our shared world deeply influences the thinking that underpins my practice. The reliance we have on each other and the material world has gained significance throughout the pandemic and will continue to be a driving force in how I engage with my practice.
Over the course of lockdown I have not been making mainly because I do not have a studio or kiln set up at home. I have spent time collecting clay for a project, hanging out with my dogs, and unlearning.
Lauren Chipeur, ream-ing, 2019. Metal paper rack, porcelain slip (8.5”x 11”) personal documents (tax forms, bills etc.), carpet scrap.
Lauren Chipeur, ream-ing, 2019. Porcelain slip, each 8.5” x 11”. Personal documents (tax forms, bills etc.), bin made using construction site clay. The interior is glazed using a recipe translated from the Upper Tolerable Limit of minerals humans can eat.
During the Lockdown, Lauren Chipeur dug up clay in the Whitemud Formation on Treaty 4 territory in western canada, hung out with her dogs, and focused on unlearning.
Lauren Chipeur collecting clay in June 2020 at the Whitemud formation on Treaty 4 Territory, near Eastend, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Lauren Chipeur, s e e p a g e / s u i n t e m e n t (2020). Reclaimed drywall, plaster made with melted snow + food coloring, old mop head, stoneware buckets filled with DAP pink time-indicator spackle + melted snow. Piles of snow were added to the vitrine intended to melt and soak into the drywall turning it from pink to white. Instead the snow melted through the plastic liner and into the carpets lining the hallway, creating the desired effect on the carpet instead of on the vertical drywall.
Lauren Chipeur collecting clay in June 2020 at the Whitemud formation on Treaty 4 Territory, near Eastend, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Lauren Chipeur, s e e p a g e / s u i n t e m e n t, 2020. stoneware buckets filled with DAP pink time indicator spackle + melted snow.
Lauren Chipeur, s e e p a g e / s u i n t e m e n t (2020). Stoneware with Portland cement glaze, stoneware bucket lids; melted snow + food coloring; DAP pink time-indicator spackle + melted snow; plaster made with melted snow + food coloring.