Exhibition Dates and Location
Marcie Rohr's Solo Exhibition What to Make of This is on display in our Main Hall Gallery from January 11th - February 27th 2025. Our Main Hall Gallery is open from 10:00am - 4:00pm Tuesdays to Saturdays and is located in the Aldergrove Kinsmen Community Center (26770 29 Ave, Aldergrove, BC V4W 3B8). This exhibition is on display in our Main Hall Gallery in tandem with Stephanie Gagne's Solo Exhibition, Living Dead Girl.
Artist Statement: What to Make of This
This life offers no shortage of experiences with sadness, hey?
Personal encounters, stories of loved ones,
and taking in the daily news leads to appointments with grief that seem both too common, and never comfortable.
Grief can be a catalyst for despair;
leading to feelings of hopelessness,
disillusionment, and unfathomable,
emotionally excruciating pain.
Through the making of abstract large-scale tapestries, I explore how the repurposing of material — often clothing — from one form to another, applies to the nature of transformation. This creative practice involves a complete change of things I hold in my hands. Due to rips and stains, their purpose no longer applies, and I find sadness, and comfort in the cutting and re-purposing of these daily objects that at one time clung so closely to my body, or those of my loved ones.
From my experiences, when it comes to tragedy, it seems there is a very thin, and almost invisible silver lining.
It’s almost as if you have to squint, and at times, believe, you are seeing it, A thin ring of light behind dark, stormy clouds: tragedies present opportunities for personal growth. This is not some kind of consolation prize, but rather a mandate to make meaning out of experiences appearing entirely senseless, and unjust.
Repurposed materials, like the body, like the earth, are a composition of elements and therefore a site of inevitable transformation. The collection and reworking of otherwise discarded material is linked to this idea of life as a cycle, one that inevitably involves dying and death, but also the creation of something new, and it seems, no matter how hard I try to parse the two; they are eternally, inextricably linked.
The tapestries are reminiscent of blankets, an enduring universal symbol of comfort through the ages. The paintings reference emotional landscapes, suggesting that the way through the grief processes is inevitably a journey through the terrain of the psyche, and for those who conceive of it — the soul, and the spirit. While much of the journey is overwhelming and out of control, there are some possible directions that can lead to the cultivation of interpersonal growth. As a fellow grief experiencer, I reach for a semblance of control and when it comes to the artistic process, I for once, get to be the storyteller. I transform found materials into artworks, and explore the nature of grief, creating a visual language of lamentation, and comfort, all the while taking my own time to heal, question, and process.
The textile works are both intricate and large, inviting the viewer to look closely and step back, mirroring the process of tuning into emotional needs and also reframing, or gaining perspective.
While the process of change as a result of grief is inevitable, it does seem there is one aspect of this arduous journey that remains possible to control, or at least, to hope for: that transformation leaves room for interpersonal growth, despite all the heartache, headaches, anger, rage, insomnia, and inexpressible sadness.
Growth is an open word that can mean many things for many people: For me, this has meant abandonment of fear, deepening of empathy, humility, appointments with divine love, gratitude and joy. This art is the means by which I explore the nature and outcomes of transformation, and that elusive silver lining, if I am squinting hard enough to see it.
Artist Biography
Marcie Rohr is a prolific painter and textile artist with a self-taught background, and education as a mature student Graduating with honours from Emily Carr University of Art and Design’s Visual Arts Program in 2021, She was a recipient of an Emily Carr University Achievement Scholarship in 2018. Over the past two decades, Marcie has participated in several juried collective exhibitions as the St. Louis Gallery in Oxford, UK, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Seymour Gallery in North Vancouver, and Upstream Gallery in upstate New York. She has held solo exhibitions at Harcourt House, Milner Gallery, and Gibson’s Public Art Gallery, among others. She is represented by Aesthete Fine Arts Gallery in Prince George, BC, and Studio Hager in Edmonton. More than one hundred of her original works have been collected by clients around the world. She lives and works on the unceded Territories of Qayqayt First Nation known today as New Westminster. In her spare time she loves adventures in countless forms, especially when they involve her two kids and spouse.