Cecilia Gossen

Translations

 Translations is one of my persistent series, an idea I return to again and again. It started in 1995 when I did an alphabet with each letter represented by a piece inspired by a famous artist—not copies of those works, but definitely works inspired by and reminiscent of famous pieces. For example, B was for Botero, D for Degas, V for Vincent.

For the second evolution of this series I took famous pieces (again!) and put my family in place of the people depicted: Last Night’s Supper, The Card Game, The Wedding of Giovanna Arnolfini and Her Husband, Beef a la Klimt, Conversation with Magritte, The Three Graces; all of these in 2000. Others in this series were Entourage (based on Velasquez’s Las Meninas) (2000), Four and Twenty Blackbirds at the Last Supper (2001), The Artist’s Daughter (after Whistler) (2002).

I am back at it. This time I started with the image of the Infanta from Velazquez’s Las Meninas (again). This is perhaps the most quoted image in art, inspiring works by artists like Picasso, Dali, and even the Simpsons; Google alone listed 215,000 Infanta images at last count. Some artists like Manolo Valdés have made a career of the Infanta and have used her image in multiple works. I have chosen to portray her in isolation, using different materials and textures.

This was a very fun project for me because I assembled odd things like corrugated cardboard, carpet underlay, odd bits of lace, the mesh that veggies come in, etc., and used them to give the piece a rich look. And even though I changed many of the details from the Velazquez painting, she is still very much the Infanta, proudly facing the world.

I can’t see the forest 

Trees, beautiful trees. I have taken silhouettes of real trees and built their canopies out of different images: dragonflies, butterflies, hands. The trees are polished aluminum and are mounted on a base of oiled cherry wood. The cut edges of the aluminum shine when light strikes them.

To Die For 

Most obituaries read like a fill-in-the-blanks form: name, year of birth, loved her family, married the love of his life, had a sense of humour, accomplished much. I prefer those obituaries that give us one or two glimpses of a life well lived and make us wish we had known that person. I have chosen sentences from real obituaries, as they were published, and paired them with portraits of imaginary people as a reminder of the hidden quirks and charms of the people who surround us. I want you, the viewer, to read the sentence and imagine the story behind it.

Icons 

Icons are playful constructions, a blend of popular art and sophisticated art-historical references. They are based on the small devotional images of the Byzantine period, and on retablos, the votive paintings of Latin American folk art.

Icons are a depiction of the parade of reality, everyday scenes and events represented in simple, flat areas of colour. They make irreverent use of familiar and banal images in a quasi-religious setting; they are theatrical with a deadpan approach and touches of humour. The images are fragmented and colourful, and evoke the large-piece wooden puzzles we played with as children.

La Sabiduría de las Abuelas

A collection of aphorisms in English/Spanish. This collection was born of my desire to keep alive those aphorisms we use in everyday conversations in Colombia. All my children live in Canada and I thought it important to give them something that represents a small slice of the condensed wisdom of their ancestors. The images that accompany this small book are sculptural reliefs created especially for this project.

 

 

Stations of the Cross

The performance of the Stations of the Cross is one of the most popular devotional rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. In my Stations of the Cross, I borrowed the traditional format (number of stations, approximate size, ‘precious’ materials) and deep symbolism to depict important events in my life’s journey, without the parallel meanings. For example, Station I is traditionally “Jesus is condemned to death’ (my Station I is Cecilia with her Parents and Older Brother). Here I am showing you Station XIV, The Graduate, a joyous pun celebrating my PhD graduation.

 

 

Looking for Mona

Mona Lisa, the painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is the most famous, best known, most recognized, most visited, most written about, most sung about, and most parodied work of art in the world. What makes the woman in this painting so easy to recognize? How many details can we remove and still recognize the famous Mona?

This tongue-in-cheek series plays with the idea of reducing Mona to its most basic essence.

Special Projects 

I do lots of different things and I didn’t know where to put them! I have done one public art commission and I am very proud of it. I love doing watercolours.. I do the occasional bronze. I do the occasional in-the-round sculpture (various materials). However, you’ll have to contact me to see these special works.