Artist Statements
Kendra Bosse, Sunshine Girl, 2020. Looking In, Clear Vision, Through the Looking Glass, 2021. A Different Kind of Sky, 2017. Relationship as Deep as the Ocean, 2021. Vegetable Dye and linocut print on cotton and cyanotype on cotton. Image credit: Cree Tylee, 2021.
Kendra Bosse
Using photographic, textile and printmaking processes treasured communicates the importance and impact of close relationships, focusing on cherished memories. I consider the loss of my mother and my sibling relationship in the creation of the large scale works seen in treasured. These works carry underlying messages of intimacy and connection. The deep blues of the cyanotypes are juxtaposed with the brightly coloured prints on vegetable dyed cotton, compositionally weaved together to create a quilt formation. The experimentation with materials seen in tiny worlds, containing cyanotypes on fragments of the inner walls of egg shells, asks the viewer to consider fragility and ephemera in reference to the maternal bond.
Cree Tylee, At the beach I and II, untitled (fish), untitled (island), Portals (series of 5), untitled (laying down), In the garden, untitled, 2021. Archival pigment print, waterslide transfer on flagstone. Image credit: Cree Tylee, 2021
Cree Tylee
The multi-layered processes for this work address the veiled layers of complexity of familial relationships. All the works shown in (A)part are waterslide transfer images created by scanning family photographs possibly taken by my sibling, my father, my mother and myself, along with recovered photographs taken by my grandmothers. When studying these images, I noticed similarities in the landscapes taken on family trips, a blurring of time and ownership. This thought process encouraged an interest in the idea of shared memories and philosophical quandaries regarding identity formation and the blending between the self and other.
I began to create subtle composite images. The process of making the water slide prints involves soaking them in water for seconds to minutes. The longer the image sits in the water, the more of the ink begins to leach into the liquid, and detail vanishes from the print. To stop this process is to remove the print from the water and adhere it to a substrate. The submergence of the photographs into a deterioration period and their re-emergence into the creation of a new image speaks to the ability that parts of one’s essence, traits and personality continue in others.
In untitled (laying down) I placed the transfers onto flagstones feigned into a pathway on the gallery floor. This series of work calls on the remembrance of family members no longer present, who were apart of one another, and I—along with my sibling are a part of them. This work asks the viewer to acknowledge the transformative qualities of the family photograph, and consider that as time continues with growth, aging, death and estrangement, the viewing process is altered and takes on additional meanings. Though these photographs may act as a preservative for a specific moment in time which can never occur again, as our realities are altered, so should be the photograph, to express these alterations of self, other, the reflection of those within one another, and all that surrounds them.