Frances Ferdinands: Adrift
May 3 to July 6, 2003
Frances Ferdinands is a Toronto-based painter who uses her artistic talent to investigate some of the challenges many of us encounter in our increasingly complex lives. Over the past twenty years, Ferdinands has produced several different series of paintings that address a variety of social, political, environmental and psychological issues.
Adrift is a series of paintings produced between 1998 and 2000. In these works Ferdinands explores a side of human nature that is more often kept behind closed doors. The focus of the paintings is on a small, fragile boat which seems to have been set adrift on the water without direction, guide or purpose. Contemplative, surreal and unsettling, Frances Ferdinands' paintings provoke the viewer to consider the isolation and obscurity hovering not only above and around the vulnerable vessel, but which also surrounds humankind as we struggle to navigate our daily lives.
I came to the creation of this series through feelings of futility, isolation, being directionless and adrift. I searched within myself for ways to visually express these feelings and began working with the image of a small weathered, wooden boat as emblematic of my sentiments. The richness of this image began to reveal itself to me as symbolic of the individual and solo struggles within the unforgiving “sea of life.” I chose to situate these boats within quiet stillness, rather than one of great turmoil to convey feelings of quiet desperation and immobility. The deep still waters also provided me the metaphor for searching the depths of the psyche. It opened a window into the dark side of our nature.
Frances Ferdinands, 2000
Frances Ferdinands was born in Columbo, Sri Lanka. She emigrated to Canada in 1958 and became a Canadian citizen in 1963. She received an A.R.C.T. (piano) from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (1972), a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University in Toronto (1974), and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Toronto (1977). For over twenty years she has exhibited her paintings in solo and group exhibitions in such diverse places as Paris, Honolulu, the continental U.S.A., and Canada. Since the mid 1970s she has received numerous grants and awards from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council in support of her artistic development. Her work is represented in public and private collections in Canada and the United States. Frances Ferdinands: Adrift is the artist's first exhibition in British Columbia.
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