The A Word

The Frances Morrison gallery space, in the downtown library, is not a juried space: that means its first come – first serve, so to speak, for individuals who want to show their work there. And yet, we’ve seen a spate of shows in this space over the last year or so that have showcased work by some very good artists, both emerging and more established: Luke Siemens, Biliana Velkova, and now, Cate Francis. It’s a space that doesn’t pay artist fees, so far as I know, and that tends to run on a shoestring: it reminds me of an artists collective space in Ontario that I belonged to, that also was unjuried, only requiring a membership, and that often had engaging and relevant work – and sometimes utter and complete crap, as we sometimes see here, at the Frances Morrison, as well.

But there’s an immediacy and rawness (and openness) here that you don’t see in Artists Run Centres anymore, if we ever did, as most of those places still program years ahead (literally – blame it on the Canada Council Grant system or some other form of calcification) and often are more concerned with the sexual orientation or gender of the “artists” proposing work than with the quality or relevance therein. And despite the lip service to “emerging” artists, most ARCs are lying, although AKA should be commended on some of its recent choices, such as the Ray Lodoen / Steven Laurie exhibition, but there’s still too many shows in ARCs that are more about “isms” than quality, and that like many “artists” will proclaim their “othered” position from a place of contradictory power, that they are not shy about abusing.

But enough of that: ARCs won’t survive the next decade, as we see all the public money poured into health care, to help the Boomers in their last failed attempt to fend off the reaper. No more arts funding – look at what they’re proposing in the U.K., for a model, and that’s even with Britain having a global voice in culture.

...but not really out loud, Cate Francis, from Small Monsters

And the saddest things is that I’m not sure I’m sad: when people who receive grants use them to first pay off a bar tab closer to a grand than 500, I am filled with anger and appropriate indignation.  Or when tenured faculty is funded, yet that same money could fund several emerging artists, I doubt the intentions  – and integrity – of the jurors involved…..

But again, enough of that: Cate Francis’ work, aesthetic and my interview with her on my radio show has made me less “notoriously cranky”….or more exact, less despairing of the art world as we know it.

Cate is a recent graduate of the BFA program at the University of Saskatchewan, and her area has often been in printmaking, and her recent exhibition, Small Monsters, is at the Frances Morrison Library gallery space, on the second floor. Cate’s work is always engaging, comical, and disturbing, and she has work that is within the art world but also beyond it, having been nominated for a Juno in 2007 for her album design work. She is also one of the artists in the upcoming exhibition “This Train : Fine Arts Alumni 1990 – 2010″ that focuses on BFA / MFA alumni of the U of S’s Department of Art and Art History: several of the choices for that show, in the BFA section, are excellent.

Alpha Male, by Cate Francis, from Small Monsters

The gallery space is arranged so that there are three ‘separate’ bodies of work, although all interrelate, both formally and conceptually: one wall is playing with notions of self portraiture, with irony and self deprecating humour (and wonderful titles like ‘Analog Input’, or ‘New creep aka “dear ravergirrrl69, your moustache is showing’), another is more playing upon notions of fables and stories we’re told as children but ‘updated’ in a way, such as with Alpha Male, of two tweenish boys in a fight (one getting the worse of it) but with both wearing masks / helmets of horned skulls, possibly deer like: the brutality and “groupthink” of youth is clear in these almost Aesop fables – like images that wouldn’t make it into any of the sanitized anthologies we have now (‘Canadian Survival : Goose Harvest’ with its brightly coloured and – do I dare say it? almost candy like and tastey looking entrails…..) . There is always a playful aspect to Francis’ work, but it’s a sense of play like we might see in children pulling the wings off of flies: there are clearly “winners” and “losers” in the child like world that Francis cites, and if you had a childhood like most of us, you have no doubt about what group is which, and who needs to fear the mob, and who leads it. I always love when people talk about the innate goodness of children, when I would cite Robertson Davies in World of Wonders, when one of his characters says he lacks the courage to explore the evil of children…one might say they don’t know any better, hah. This may be why, to paraphrase Camille Paglia from Sexual Personae, I agree that de Sade is a more exact social philosopher than Rousseau – let’s not pretend that we’re good, naturally, without effort, and its too easy to blame it on civilization, as the latter does: or I’d refer you to the 120 Days of Sodom, and how de Sade’s villains are the General, the Bishop, and others whom all have their appropriate “masks” of civility…that may or may not be skulls, horned, and like the ones worn by Francis’ cast of characters.

Building a self from skeletal archetypes, Cate Francis, from Small Monsters

This is smart, engaging work, well executed, and it gives me hope for the Saskatoon arts community not just because of that, but also because this is not an uncommon thing, to see, whether in the Frances Morrison Gallery or in other places around the city: a young, “emerging” artist showing work, getting their art out there, and not letting the calcification or pandering of the larger community prevent this.