Artist Statements
(From left to right) Richard Dean Irvine, Through the Reigns of a Paint Brush (Front view), 2019. Through the Reigns of a Paint Brush (Side view), 2019.
Richard Dean Irvine
Impact
What if the impact was so great you couldn’t even talk to others or even yourself, but your mind never stopped talking inside, healing your mind and body?
You are that powerful.
I grew up in Barrie, Ontario. I always knew I had a creative side but I thought it was weird, or felt off, so I avoided my creative side, while growing up in a ‘tuff neighborhood.
I’m a realist. I stuck with my physical training routine my whole life, until I was 34 years old, hardening my body for a battle I didn’t know was coming. That was all that mattered; not marks, not success, but fitness and health. However, during my younger years, I used to watch a guy paint decals and designs on cars in our side-by-side driveway. He painted record albums on vehicles, and I would observe him for hours.
Sometimes in life, something so powerful can happen that makes us live lost, and learn to hate ourselves and see the worst of situations, living on what I refer to as ‘borrowed time.’
What if that view can be changed and instead, after injury, you catch and change the mechanism of injury into creativity – creativity that inspires yourself and others.
That’s who I am now – I am finding the real version of me, ‘the grounded lion’, using my brain, heart, and courage to keep moving forward, where forward leads.
Many of us live our lives not paying attention to what is right in front of us.
This space and exhibition is about opening opportunities; to show my work and share my passion, and journey. For me, the impact of this exhibition allows an opportunity to share where I have been and what I have learned, quite literally, through the reigns of a paint brush. The experience of the pandemic had shut me down, and as we all masked and unmasked, we have learned so much more about mental health.
This exhibition has allowed me take off one mask, while still wearing another, and I'm learning, loving, and embracing every minute of it.
Marcel Grimard, Fish, 2020. Green Brazilian stone.
Poisson, 2020. Pierre verte du Brésil.
Marcel Grimard
Mercury is also a metal
During times of crisis or great social/institutional change, people react in a multitude of ways. Some develop changes in personality, which will have a long-lasting impact on their thoughts, behaviours and emotions. We use metaphors like ‘made of iron’ or ‘bending like a reed’ to describe how people cope, react and adapt… to describe ‘what we’re made of.’
Pure mercury best describes who I am. Mercury is obtained through a long, complex and violent process. Mercury will always revert to its original form. Toxic in the environment, mercury is also an essential component of everyday objects like fluorescent lights. Its main characteristics are its fluidity, its high electric conductivity and its shiny, ‘quicksilver’ color. I was raised in a dysfunctional family where physical and emotional abuse was a daily occurrence, to the point of broken bones, a concussion and lasting psychological residue. From November through to April, our mother gave us cough syrup to prevent any illness, not knowing (or caring) that it contained alcohol and codeine. Each spring, without realizing it, I would go through withdrawal. I would become unmanageable, with severe mood swings. Consequently, I would be punished with emotional and psychological abuse at school, hit at home, and blamed for my average school grades. The family doctor prescribed opiates to treat migraines caused by a concussion at age 14.
At 25, personality tests presented a flat personality, a first-quintile intelligence and emotional intelligence, which meant an exceptional adaptability to crisis and environment. I could learn and do anything if I put my mind into it. Unfortunately, my childhood psychological pattern (crisis – psychoactive substance – withdrawal – adapt – repeat), would lead to a similar career pattern: chosen occupation – education – excellence – crisis – psychiatric treatment – adaptation – repeat.
The last such cycle left me with permanent impairments. To find meaning and purpose, I turned to a side I had not explored – my artistic personality. I have already learned how to rise from ruin to slowly regain my full potential—being a professional artist is no different.
This exhibit is a concrete demonstration of a mercurial personality: fluid, shiny, unpredictable. At this stage in my recovery, my art—like myself—is a work in progress. My personal artistic style is eclectic and testament to my learning style: organic, kinesthetic, analytic and inquisitive. My curiosity is my drive, and my education is ongoing.
Art allows emotional recycling, neutralizing traumas to reach out to a universal audience. This exhibit is about hope, trust in oneself and faith in a better tomorrow.
(En français)
Le mercure est aussi un métal
Durant les périodes de crise ou de grands changements sociaux, les individus réagissent de multiples façon. Certains développent des troubles de la personnalité qui auront des impacts sur leurs pensées, leurs comportements et leurs émotions. Nous utilisons des métaphores tel que “il est fait d’acier” ou “il plie comme un Roseau” pour décrire comment certaines personnes s’adaptent, réagissent ou gerent pour les décrire.
Le mercure est la substance qui me décrit le mieux. Obtenu suite à un long processus, complexe et violent, le mercure retrouvera toujours sa forme originale. Toxique dans l’environment, le mercure est un composé essentiel d’objets du quotidian tel que les fluorescents. Ces caractéristiques principales sont sa fluidité, son niveau très élevé de conductivité électrique et cette belle couleur argenté.
J’ai grandi dans une famille dysfonctionnelle où les abus physiques et émotionnels étaient choses courrantes au point d’os cassés, de commutions cérébrales et de séquelles psychologiques. De novembre à avril, ma mère nous faisait prendre un syrop pour la toux avec 25% d’alcool ou un syrop pour la toux avec de la codéine. Chaque printemps, sans le reconnaître, je vivais une période de désintoxication ce qui me rendait ingérable avec des sautes d’humeurs à la maison et à l’école. En conséquence, je me faisait batter à la maison pour mes pauvres résultats scolaires et à l’école, je me faisais punir pour mon comportement dissipé. À quatorze ans, mon médecin de famille me prescrit un opiate pour traiter mes commutions cérébrales.
À 25 ans, j’ai passé une série de tests psychométriques; un test de personnalité décrivant un individu avec un profil plat, un test d’intelligence et un test d’intelligence émotionelle me situaient au premier quantile. Dans les faits, l’interprétation me décrivait comme un individu capable de s’adapter et d’apprendre à peu près tout, si j’y met mon coeur. Malheureusement, mon pattern psychologique de mon enfance (crise-substance psychoactive- retrait-adaptation-répéter) s’imposa toute ma vie professionnelle (choix de carrière-éducation-excellence-crise-traitement psychiâtrique-adaptation-répéter).
Le dernier cycle m’a laissé avec une invalidité permanente. Pour trouver un but et un sens à ma vie, j’ai centre mon choix de carrière un aspect de moi que je n’avais pas encore investi soit ma personalité artistique. J’ai appris plusieurs fois que je pouvais me relever de mes cendres pour retrouver mon plein potentiel, devenir un artiste professionnel n’était pas moins different.
Cette exposition est une démonstration concrète de personalité mercurial: fluide, brillante, et insoupçonnée. À ce stage de mon rétablissant, mon art, comme moi-même, est un processus continu. Mon style artistique est écliptique et un testament de mon style d’apprentissage: kinestésique, analitique et inquisateur. Ma curiosité estmon guide et mon apprensissage est continu. L’art permet le recyclage émotionel neutralisant mes traumas et ainsi rejoindre un publique universel. Cette exposition est un aude à l’espoir, la confiance en soi et la foi en des jours meilleurs.