Barbara Todd A Bed is a Boat
Barbara Todd, Night Sky, 1994
Opening on Saturday, September 14, 1996 at 4 pm
During the last decade Barbara Toddhas used the hand quilted bedcover to create work that presents an unnerving link between the mortal body, domesticity and warfare. Her recent body of work, completed since her arrival in Montréal in 1993, expands the notion of the Security Blankets (1986-1993) to explore the resonances and paradoxes of darkness, night, sleep, dreams and death.
In addition to the large scale woolen quilted works included in this installation, Todd is introducing large brush line drawings based on those of young children. Texts excerpted from poetry by Muriel Rukeyser and Paul Celan as well as folk lullabies are woven through the installation. These textual references underline Todd’s interest in the passage between wakefulness and sleep, conscious and unconscious. In Rukeyser’s words:
The days grow and the stars cross over And my wild bed turns slowly among the stars.
Relinquishing the irony of the earlier Security Blankets, the recent body of work is both allusive and tender, opening up a dreamlike space rich in metaphor. In this state, as the artist says commenting on the quilt Adam’s Boat (1995), “a boat is a bed is a hole is a moon, a ditch, a cradle and a grave.”
Barbara Todd, Night Sky, 1994
Barbara Todd completed her studies in Visual Arts at Guelph University in 1975. From 1981 to 1993 she lived in Banff, Alberta, where she developed a body of work building on the tradition of quilting. The solo exhibition entitled Security Blankets, organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in 1992 toured across the country fo three years, allowing many to familiarize themselves with the work of the artist. Todd has lived in Montreal since 1993.
Barbara Todd, vue de l’exposition A Bed is a Boat, 1996
Barbara Todd, vue de l’exposition A Bed is a Boat, 1996
Barbara Todd, vue de l’exposition A Bed is a Boat, 1996
Barbara Todd, Pelt, 1996