Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site Shea Chang Mon, 28 Sep 2020 20:44:53 +0000 https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site en An Intertidal Pool https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/An-Intertidal-Pool Fri, 25 Sep 2020 21:27:49 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/An-Intertidal-Pool Notes Right: Sketches,Maquettes &amp; Process Shea Chang, 2018-2020 Below: Field research photos Shea Chang, 2017-2020 <img width="1400" height="1334" width_o="1400" height_o="1334" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1f71bc545b5cb9e01e09746a5353e97f3682665ef250ab418777981fa3f8e885/Reference2.jpg" data-mid="84026612" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1f71bc545b5cb9e01e09746a5353e97f3682665ef250ab418777981fa3f8e885/Reference2.jpg" />1&nbsp; Photographs taken in Iceland, Toronto and California, 2017-2020 <img width="1400" height="1266" width_o="1400" height_o="1266" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3769137fc7432bbd2849b612e0437d2648e44713321ee336c1746571b402e013/ref_4.jpg" data-mid="84026825" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3769137fc7432bbd2849b612e0437d2648e44713321ee336c1746571b402e013/ref_4.jpg" />2&nbsp; Rice Bowl <img width="1200" height="1029" width_o="1200" height_o="1029" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/795d1f78e902039cd3486ca4a1e2b92fe75c78ad28ef0c011f932ffa9f36c09c/ref_5.jpg" data-mid="84026826" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/795d1f78e902039cd3486ca4a1e2b92fe75c78ad28ef0c011f932ffa9f36c09c/ref_5.jpg" /> 3&nbsp; Studio Ephemera: plastic fan, tassles and sewing cushion <img width="1400" height="1053" width_o="1400" height_o="1053" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0a482461a4d450b159dfc71b7baa72c5580427157a549f4de76631c8cacaaedb/Process8-copy.png" data-mid="84025775" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0a482461a4d450b159dfc71b7baa72c5580427157a549f4de76631c8cacaaedb/Process8-copy.png" /> 4&nbsp; Misc. reference photos <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4be40639b4f3e89096827585ce5c95efe367c54c9578757ebb9c8b953fbfe42d/IMG_8893.JPG" data-mid="83927091" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4be40639b4f3e89096827585ce5c95efe367c54c9578757ebb9c8b953fbfe42d/IMG_8893.JPG" /> 3&nbsp;Photograph of a paper kite at Lydia and Philip Chang’s home in Piers Island, BC, 2019 To assemble source imagery for this body of work, I gathered inspiration by taking photographs of pieces from my family’s home that represented mixed and skewed object histories. Chinese ink paintings on fan-shaped paper, ceramic vases, opalescent fishing lures, or Saskatchewan braided wheat décor were all items that filtered into the visual world of my bi-racial family home growing up in British Columbia. Whether passed down from my grandmother’s dowry, purchased at a garage sale, or bought from a dollar store in Chinatown, the histories of these objects were murky, obfuscated, with origins entangled between available and adrift. The personal vernacular brought to this project became an amalgamation of references that connected landscape to memory. In my circumstance of inherited culture and migration, a cheap Chinese paper kite became symbolic of the elusive yet intertwined lines connecting origin, migration and the traces of lost or gained cultural lineages between them. In addition to these personal objects, I amassed photographs that I took in various locales from my field studies over the last 2 years, including locales from West coast of BC, Southern Ontario, San Francisco, California, and Southern Iceland. Through each encounter, my areas of investigation were focused on symbiotic relationships in geological and biological environments of liminal shorelines. Through these trips, I was presented with both the privilege and physical challenge to experience many of these places through intimate personal encounter. Through these personal, external and experiential fragments, I drew together inspiration to begin the next experimental phase of my creative process. In order to generate a new visual language, I played with simple prompts, creative parameters and exercises. Free-associative drawing, expressive mark-making and experimental techniques were the impetus for investigations in charcoal, graphite ink and water-based paint processes, masking techniques, salts on water colour pigments, photocopied distortions, toner and solvent transfers, paper collage and maquettes. I considered everything generated during this experimental period as future fodder for something else, as each piece was saved as a study, later collaged, or incorporated into another piece. As photocopies were hybridized into mixed media drawings, and collages co-opted into paintings, mutations took shape and the work began a process of metamorphosis. Barad, Karen, et al. No Small Matter: Mushroom Clouds, Ecologies of Nothingness, and Strange Topologoies of Spacetimemattering, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. University of Minnesota Press, 2017. The Grotto as an Intertidal pool~ processes of intra-action <img width="1309" height="1297" width_o="1309" height_o="1297" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3eb74a2e591ed8edb1107564923944ea7c4ff5ac2aaf02b6bee7fd155bf97ce6/Process10.png" data-mid="84019328" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3eb74a2e591ed8edb1107564923944ea7c4ff5ac2aaf02b6bee7fd155bf97ce6/Process10.png" /> <img width="1024" height="1066" width_o="1024" height_o="1066" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a3a776d3ba78f11ebe4eb4b527b21c43be1c5485cd4c1269f3236b38b8cbf5ad/06SC_Squint.jpg" data-mid="83927096" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a3a776d3ba78f11ebe4eb4b527b21c43be1c5485cd4c1269f3236b38b8cbf5ad/06SC_Squint.jpg" /> <img width="1600" height="1253" width_o="1600" height_o="1253" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3f05e88d4597dc3362f46a377d8166cef68b4b8730b568dcfffde2d4c10a9239/Process13.jpg" data-mid="84018923" border="0" 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/> <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1f0dbbae38f6cb604636430c7e9f1c45a78a1a95be409149c5b7973e1f3bb57c/IMG_7668.JPG" data-mid="83802510" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1f0dbbae38f6cb604636430c7e9f1c45a78a1a95be409149c5b7973e1f3bb57c/IMG_7668.JPG" /> <img width="944" height="1580" width_o="944" height_o="1580" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9621a6dd95d884acb4b35a01720c347d07d3c892f82b78beaf4aa154a792c10b/Process1.png" data-mid="84019316" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/944/i/9621a6dd95d884acb4b35a01720c347d07d3c892f82b78beaf4aa154a792c10b/Process1.png" /> <img width="1600" height="1923" width_o="1600" height_o="1923" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/056dcc24f9726bfb26b80b4bcf020b48b645086ef15e24946745f2cdc1df2f1f/Process11.jpg" data-mid="84019329" border="0" data-no-zoom="true" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/056dcc24f9726bfb26b80b4bcf020b48b645086ef15e24946745f2cdc1df2f1f/Process11.jpg" /> <img width="987" height="1600" width_o="987" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/841acdce617c0230ea6b34ed5cbe0e3b4790d0d5372a34f3d3095419ec7d927e/Process12.jpg" data-mid="84018922" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/987/i/841acdce617c0230ea6b34ed5cbe0e3b4790d0d5372a34f3d3095419ec7d927e/Process12.jpg" /> <img width="1400" height="1635" width_o="1400" height_o="1635" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/36e5b27c3e614b298099fc496fa1e519997694c8086d58ae1fafd168e59759bc/Process17.jpg" data-mid="84025906" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/36e5b27c3e614b298099fc496fa1e519997694c8086d58ae1fafd168e59759bc/Process17.jpg" /> Push Moraine https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/Push-Moraine Mon, 28 Sep 2020 20:44:53 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/Push-Moraine Grand River, Ontario: Summer swim across river, rest in a small grotto. Ashbridges Bay, Lake Ontario: Early spring walk along shore amidst brush and swamp. Rainforest Tofino, BC: Walk in rainforest across fallen cedars to a light dappled swamp to watch reflections. Mackenzie Beach, Tofino BC: When tide is low, walk across beach to island. Enter the island through the gaps between deadwood. Nap on rotted bark or nestled between rocks. Return before high tide. Vatnajokull, Iceland: Cycle on windy road alongside the southernmost tip of glacier. Cross each melting river that reaches out towards the ocean. Feel the presence of the glacier in periphery, and each elevation change tinge in your legs. Skaftafel, Iceland: Sit on a push moraine hill of a glacier and listen to it melt and crack. Look at the green, black and brown hillside through the holes in the ice. Finn Slough, Richmond, BC: Cross the broken bridge to the boardwalk. Imagine the water moving through the dried eel grasses left behind on the boat below. Air Canada Flight from YVR to YQR: Fly through clouds over Rockies and across plough line patterns disrupted by occasional Albertan coulees. Push Moraine Definition of Moraine: Any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris (rock) that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions on Earth (i.e. a past glacial maximum), through geomorphological processes. It is unstratified when dropped by the glacier and shows no sorting or bedding. A Folly https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/A-Folly Fri, 25 Sep 2020 21:27:50 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/A-Folly Notes 1 Threshold Index 1Shea Chang, 2020.8” x 10”, mixed media drawing, ink on arches paper.2&nbsp;Threshold Index 4Shea Chang, 2020.8” x 10”, mixed media drawing, watercolour, salt, photocopy transfer collage, washi tape and pastel on arches paper.3&nbsp;Threshold Index 2Shea Chang, 2020.8” x 10”, mixed media drawing, watercolour, photocopy transfer and graphite on arches paper.4&nbsp;Threshold Index 6Shea Chang, 2020.8” x 10”, mixed media drawing, watercolour, pencil crayon and graphite on arches paper.5Threshold Index 5Shea Chang, 2020.8” x 10”, mixed media drawing, watercolour, ink and graphite on arches paper.6&nbsp;Threshold Index 3Shea Chang, 2020.8” x 10”, mixed media drawing, watercolour and graphite on arches paper. 7It’s Friday and I’m Ready to SwingShea Chang, 2020.48” x 48”, acrylic on wood panel. Like a limestone cave formed over time through contact with acidic water, my artistic practice is activated through the dissolution of boundaries in media, and in means of depiction. Grottoes have a history of being co-opted spaces of devotion, reverence and transcendence, but are also at times associated with hidden debauchery and decadence, even adorned by the ubiquitous, kitschy seashell. In these follies, a mutation occurs between what is made by natural processes and what is mimicked or faked in construction. This definition of folly is analogous to the contemporary painting practice of coalescing the virtually constructed world with the physical through a brazenly baroque combination of ornament and illusion. Like a collection of shells and strewn plastic caught in the tide of a watery cave, this interchange of elements and forces is made visible in my work through the entanglement of materials, techniques, and artistic strategies. Through engagement with chance and systems of control, I generate visual worlds through processes of mimicry, mutation, delineation and dissolution, cultivating an uncanny amalgamation between the optical, physical and the material. I engage in drawing and painting through this differential play of delineating and dissolving forms, light and shadows through an improvisational and intuitive process. Masking techniques provide sharp, initial parameters that later become blurred, interrupted or erased. Wet-on-wet, porous applications of paint are extended on skin-like absorbent ground, revealing a permeable painted record of the traces and stains of its own environmental becoming. Through an interplay between graphic and immersive approaches to depiction, the performative lexicon in my work functions to create context around imagined propositions; at its core, A Troubling, Soft Underfoot is about world building from an others’perspective. The smaller works can be viewed as indexes of speculative objects, where the larger, more physically immersive pieces can be perceived as spaces that are affected by these objects, or perhaps even created by these objects themselves. The Grotto as a Folly: Permeable Thresholds Between Visual Vernaculars <img width="844" height="1024" width_o="844" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/02e93d053fc0e463fd2ae41c82002cf7af3796311c92b179cfc655242da10f6c/01SC_thresholdindex1.jpg" data-mid="84106489" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/844/i/02e93d053fc0e463fd2ae41c82002cf7af3796311c92b179cfc655242da10f6c/01SC_thresholdindex1.jpg" /> 1. <img width="844" height="1034" width_o="844" height_o="1034" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7863efe1f18a76444914a090007b39fbffca6a106aac23e672c1603d3fb0086a/03SC_thresholdindex4.jpg" data-mid="84106502" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/844/i/7863efe1f18a76444914a090007b39fbffca6a106aac23e672c1603d3fb0086a/03SC_thresholdindex4.jpg" /> 2. <img width="830" height="1024" width_o="830" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/47ec24ab6a7bc4eed97e07f7552cf7cac33aa5f96bf8c00f23ea37f09722a1dc/04SC_thresholdinex2.jpg" data-mid="84106629" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/830/i/47ec24ab6a7bc4eed97e07f7552cf7cac33aa5f96bf8c00f23ea37f09722a1dc/04SC_thresholdinex2.jpg" /> &nbsp;3. <img width="832" height="1024" width_o="832" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c6825b84feef03889b3d411981fea09f48bb82bd78ae44c3c748b78f03d1aa4d/Threshold-Index-6_low-res.jpg" data-mid="84107110" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/832/i/c6825b84feef03889b3d411981fea09f48bb82bd78ae44c3c748b78f03d1aa4d/Threshold-Index-6_low-res.jpg" /> 4. <img width="832" height="1024" width_o="832" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/39bb14f2c5e35c0517759ab9b5379623419be08953eddf1e0b6d0ffb3dd6e2e3/Thresholdindex5_lowres.jpg" data-mid="84107331" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/832/i/39bb14f2c5e35c0517759ab9b5379623419be08953eddf1e0b6d0ffb3dd6e2e3/Thresholdindex5_lowres.jpg" /> &nbsp; 5. <img width="1132" height="933" width_o="1132" height_o="933" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d877a160b82f13e5e8b3888596c1a6aecdbe78d9f00f448c2665beb918ebaa06/02SC_thresholdindex3.jpg" data-mid="84021418" border="0" data-scale="89" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d877a160b82f13e5e8b3888596c1a6aecdbe78d9f00f448c2665beb918ebaa06/02SC_thresholdindex3.jpg" />&nbsp; 6. <img width="1600" height="1600" width_o="1600" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/500ae3e3aa360c72aac7266ee7462848672c832a5b712ecdcd90eaeeb345d1d1/Friday-Swing.jpg" data-mid="83928612" border="0" data-scale="89" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/500ae3e3aa360c72aac7266ee7462848672c832a5b712ecdcd90eaeeb345d1d1/Friday-Swing.jpg" />&nbsp; 7. A Space for Queer Encounter https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/A-Space-for-Queer-Encounter Fri, 25 Sep 2020 21:27:51 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/A-Space-for-Queer-Encounter Notes1 The&nbsp;Grotto ParadoxShea Chang, 2020. 18” x 20 3/8 x 5”, acrylic and absorbent ground on formed aluminum composite &nbsp; panel, plexiglass, wooden plinth. 2 The Grotto Paradox (detail)Shea Chang, 2020. Installation photos and video by the artist Within this hybrid encounter of painting, drawing and sculpture, notions of familiarity or categorical belonging become scattered and fleeting. Through luminous shifts radiating on the exterior shell and on the interior chamber of the painted ‘pavilion’, the viewer’s attention is drawn to the fleeting nature of the boundaries between interior and the exterior states. Experiencing this work can be compared to standing in front of a shifty, irresolute architectural structure or an encounter with a “queer object”, as Sara Ahmed describes as “how one approaches the object that slopes away - as a way of inhabiting the world at the point in which things fleet”.1 Beyond scalar dynamics and material contrast, colour is also used to activate liminal space within this work. Intended as an affirmation of an others’ presence or as a celebratory haunting, these colours signal something that is absent, peripheral and unattainable but ominously felt, nonetheless. &nbsp;1 &nbsp; Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006. The Grotto as a Space of Queer Encounter: Deviations Between the Physical &amp; Optical &nbsp;<img width="1024" height="584" width_o="1024" height_o="584" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/074f1955eb7ba47471a8bb6c5674becf277168ac638ee120f1a7a685da0c6a2d/Grotto-paradox-install_CROPPED.jpg" data-mid="84094811" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/074f1955eb7ba47471a8bb6c5674becf277168ac638ee120f1a7a685da0c6a2d/Grotto-paradox-install_CROPPED.jpg" /> 1. <img width="1024" height="1425" width_o="1024" height_o="1425" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f74490796f4304120d3dd9efe69176ed0e23069c6bc960a89203aad05fc7e0eb/12SC_thegrottoparadox.jpg" data-mid="84094679" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f74490796f4304120d3dd9efe69176ed0e23069c6bc960a89203aad05fc7e0eb/12SC_thegrottoparadox.jpg" /> &nbsp;2. A Matrix https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/A-Matrix Fri, 25 Sep 2020 22:37:18 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/A-Matrix Notes1 A Brackish Tendency,Shea Chang, 2020. 18” x 24”, acrylic and absorbent ground on shaped aluminum composite panel, aluminum subframe. 2 My HorizonShea Chang, 2020. 15” x 22 x 2”, acrylic on shaped aluminum composite, birch panel and chalk pastel on wall. 3&nbsp;A Meadow is Also a Parking Lot, Shea Chang, 2020. 48” x 36”, acrylic and absorbent ground on aluminum composite panel, aluminum subframe. 3 &nbsp;The Maypole, Inherited, Shea Chang, 2020. 36” x 48”, acrylic and absorbent ground on aluminum composite panel, aluminum subframe. 4 Fan (Tomorrow’s Fire), Shea Chang, 2020. 48” x 30”, acrylic and absorbent ground on shaped aluminum composite panel, aluminum subframe. As vessels of cultural migration, appropriation, and fetishization, ‘orientalist’ objects are indicators of the hidden frictions in cross-cultural navigation. In the attempt to build a personal visual vocabulary that speaks to these mixed, broken and scattered containers of culture, I examine and employ motifs found in vases, fans, textiles and ephemera into my work. The difficulty to contain my own biracial narrative is explored in the piece, A Brackish Tendency. Through motifs extending from each end of the two-dimensional wave-shaped surface, two distinct patterns fade in subtle gradation towards off-kilter discs in the centre, where the two sides fail to intersect. Liminal bodies of water and ecological states of flux are ever present, signalling the hidden power dynamics of place and positionality. I am interested in making visible these unseen agencies of land, in order to carve out spaces of possibility where marginalized, forgotten or lost narratives can transcend exclusions or restraints. The Grotto as a Matrix: Liminal Assemblages &amp; Symbiotic Bodies <img width="915" height="1024" width_o="915" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/477390476c143ead29583132933c269e5ab87e24fbb4d4b7ec2fd7258bec732a/Brackish-Tendency_Sept-2020.jpg" data-mid="84100623" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/915/i/477390476c143ead29583132933c269e5ab87e24fbb4d4b7ec2fd7258bec732a/Brackish-Tendency_Sept-2020.jpg" /> 1. &nbsp; <img width="639" height="1024" width_o="639" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1e20bd2cffe22c5ee01c1271047be137a9e7561d7105948f0d1bacbd3b082a8f/My-Horizon_sideview.jpg" data-mid="84100626" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/639/i/1e20bd2cffe22c5ee01c1271047be137a9e7561d7105948f0d1bacbd3b082a8f/My-Horizon_sideview.jpg" /> <img width="788" height="1024" width_o="788" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6c478dbb458477322ae1ee4b503508da601950372665c92955eca458797f8303/My-Horizon.jpg" data-mid="84100627" border="0" data-scale="96" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/788/i/6c478dbb458477322ae1ee4b503508da601950372665c92955eca458797f8303/My-Horizon.jpg" /> 2. <img width="1024" height="768" width_o="1024" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b349769537f6af93d45b06ddb7585fc638ae53941cb652377140b07031ae70da/SC_ameadowisalsoaparkinglot.jpg" data-mid="83928592" border="0" data-scale="81" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b349769537f6af93d45b06ddb7585fc638ae53941cb652377140b07031ae70da/SC_ameadowisalsoaparkinglot.jpg" />&nbsp;3. <img width="768" height="1024" width_o="768" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/68c9172c3d9675aaf8e5a3449c905476fc73b0127ca0a73f8c1b2956ecfef180/09SC_themaypoleinherited.jpg" data-mid="84021839" border="0" data-scale="81" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/68c9172c3d9675aaf8e5a3449c905476fc73b0127ca0a73f8c1b2956ecfef180/09SC_themaypoleinherited.jpg" />&nbsp; 3. <img width="768" height="1024" width_o="768" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e09fc9f6ad9ff8c51eb25a64a56cb53c9b3e831137645d17615e9dd73d41dd82/Fan_Tomorrows-Fire.jpg" data-mid="84105556" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/e09fc9f6ad9ff8c51eb25a64a56cb53c9b3e831137645d17615e9dd73d41dd82/Fan_Tomorrows-Fire.jpg" /> &nbsp;4. About https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/About Fri, 25 Sep 2020 21:27:51 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/About Abstract&nbsp; This project has been generously funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts Graduate Program in Visual Arts York University Toronto, ON Acknowledgements: I would like to acknowledge the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original cohabitants and custodians of the land on which I live, work and create. Thank you to my thesis supervisory committee Janet Jones, Graham Wakefield and Yam Lau for their guidance, discourse and trust in the creation of this project. A special thank you to B, I am eternally grateful for your endless support and love. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Like the dispersion of life through a liminal pool, mixed orientations are based on non-fixed points; they are active, slippery and non- delineated positions, affected by the influx of shifting entities. Can these porous, non-individualistic and divergent states of being reframe or aid our ability to live in an inconstant, mutable geopolitical existence? A Troubling, Soft Underfoot delves into the spatiality of complex otherness, and investigates pluralistic, non-delineated and deviant embodiments of place, race, gender, and sexuality through cross-bred processes of drawing, painting and sculpture. Through thin washes of pigment extended onto aluminum, a disquieting exchange is generated amidst thresholds in contemporary drawing, painting and sculpture; the resulting work takes shape between the spaces of control and accident, opacity and transparency, porosity and rigidity, alignment and disruption, seen and unseen. The multiple and mutable optical and physical formations in this work propose a reconsideration of the thresholds between all things, organisms, animals and humans, to uncover the invisible symbiotic entanglements in which we all exist. Key Words:visual art, mixed media art, painting, drawing, sculpture, symbiosis, liminal, geology, ecology, metamorphosis, mutation, geopolitics, queer, feminist, phenomenology, diaspora, migrant, mixed ethnography, intertidal, oceanic, marshlands Artist Bio Shea Chang activates an artistic practice in-between and outside of the traditional paradigms of the art and design field. Informed by her multi-racial and queer identities, her work investigates ecological symbiosis, divergence and mutation and its relationship to diasporic and queer phenomenology. These porous, shifting and slippery ecological and cultural conditions are reflected in her visual work through cross-bred modes of digital and analogue painting, drawing, mark-making and printmaking/reproductive processes, computer generative processes and digital fabrication.Chang’s experiences in creating public murals, illustrations, workshops, zines and exhibitions have allowed her to work collective and collaboratively driven visual art and design projects across Canada. In 2011 her Illustrated children’s book, Tarentelle (published by Marchand De Feuilles) won a Governor General’s Finalist Award. Chang is a currently a candidate in the MFA Visual Arts Program at York University and is Assistant Professor of Illustration at OCAD University. Index https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/Index Fri, 25 Sep 2020 21:27:52 +0000 Shea Chang https://atroublingsoftunderfoot.cargo.site/Index <img width="1600" height="1791" width_o="1600" height_o="1791" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4880fb421cfff3ada793a3904dde835336f11850675d2521bbfea88bde7eaa5e/Brackish-Tendency_Sept-2020.jpg" data-mid="83802389" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4880fb421cfff3ada793a3904dde835336f11850675d2521bbfea88bde7eaa5e/Brackish-Tendency_Sept-2020.jpg" /> A Troubling, Soft UnderfootShea Chang ︎&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;info@sheachang.com ︎ &nbsp;&nbsp; www.sheachang.com ︎&nbsp; &nbsp; sheachang︎ About A Space for Queer Encounter ~deviations between the physical &amp; optical An Intertidal Pool~ processes of intra-action Push Moraine A Matrix ~ liminal assemblages &amp; symbiotic bodies A Folly~ permeable thresholds between visual vernaculars