Intermediary

An exhibition of artworks by Tony Myers

March 1 to March 30, 2012
The gallery is open during library hours

                Messenger                                                  Spirit Chasers

Artist Bio

Tony Myers came to printmaking after a 25-year career in the not-for-profit sector. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Leisure Studies. Tony studied printmaking at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Korea, Japan, and China.

Artistic Statement

The current exhibit addresses the idea of intermediary or go between - employing a shaman, birds and the natural world in search of a spiritual connection. Printmaking is an indirect medium and the process parallels this theme. The print matrix or printing block is an intermediary between the imagery and the final product, and it is not a neutral one. It has its own way of expressing the content it holds.
-Tony Myers

Curatorial Statement

Where can I go then from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
If I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
If I take the wings of the morning
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand will lead me
And your right hand hold me fast.
-Psalm 139:6-9

In these verses, the psalmist imagines himself on a journey to the edges of the cosmos. In every place, he feels the presence of the Spirit. He meets this with ambivalence—fleeing as if in terror, yet knowing that he is guided and held fast by that presence. As the psalmist reveals, the most honest human response to the Spirit’s effusive presence is an exquisite mix of wonder and fear. These twin sensations come through in Tony Myers’ work. His scenes often take place under the ominous cover of night. Stars print patterns across the sky and owls look on with alert eyes as human beings perform religious rituals. His scenes also speak of the joy just beyond our flesh and our circumstances. A keyhole promises freedom and a song carries a singer towards it.

Intermediary by Tony Myers is an exhibition about the points of contact between our ordinary human lives and the unfathomable realms of the Spirit. In these images, birds circle and come to land, bearing messages from far heights and distant places. Bodies dance and chant as if joining with unseen companions. Shadows take on solid shape and light emanates from trees and human flesh. Captured here are the moments when human beings transcend their own finitude and join with the mystical forces of nature and Spirit in one awesome and terrifying dance. These moments of contact may come in the midst of song or at the time of death. They may come in the throes of ecstatic prayer or in the quietness of contemplation. However they come, these moments confirm the intuition that our lives unfold in a vastly complex and densely populated cosmos.

Tony’s medium is appropriate to the idea of ‘intermediacy.’ The print block is itself a go-between: it is the found, carved, and inked surface that the artist presses to the paper. Because the image on paper is the inverse of the print block as object, what appears from this contact is both willfully imposed and wonderfully unexpected. Tony’s artistry is in seeing beyond his ideas, sketches, and carving to the completed images on paper, a practice that demands openness and observation at every step.

-Nicole Uzans
February, 2012