Pages of the Skies
Mark Bovey. Pigmented inkjet prints on poly-core aluminum. 102 x 146 in. (16 works each 23.6 x 30.7 in.) 2021.
My new work begins with the recognition of my identity as a descendant of British colonizers. By mining the colonial archive, I am exploring and exploiting the mind field of the industrial age. By excavating historical records and making layered palimpsests, I hope the compositions open new discourse.
The exposed and composed images are reintroduced, folded, or mashed into the current context, up against the phenomenal presence of natural forces alongside the mistrust of scientific truth. If one thinks of printed images as recordings to be replayed through analog and electronic media, or fragments of the problematic past outside of the collective self, then the books and archives I use represent the terroir of an ideological (colonizer) identity.
This work has been generously funded through an Arts Nova Scotia Project Grant