The Feb. 4 opening date is approaching for Gibsons' artist Nadina Tandy in her first solo show at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, and she is moving easily through a creative fervour that will help her to finish the 14th large painting and maybe even work on a 15th. "There's one more there if it comes out," Tandy said. "If not, I'm happy with the work I've produced."
She's enjoying the steady pace. The days are full: paint in the studio, let the puppy out, prepare her promotional material for the show, let the puppy in, keep her sense of humour intact. Research and concentrate on the exhibition's theme: things hidden and magical protection.
There are also 12 smaller pieces to be hung, some of which have been prepared using encaustic, a wax technique that gives a ghostly sheen to the finished work and slightly obscures the text that has been incorporated into the art. The use of text, a single line, a word, is fast becoming a Tandy trademark.
For every artist, the pre-show period is usually fraught with self doubt and insecurity. How will people respond to the new work? Tandy's show proposal was accepted based on her previous work, not on this new direction. Also, this is the first time she has worked on canvas; usually she likes the hard surface of board or she works on paper. Canvas requires pushing the flexible surface, using lots of gesso, creating her own layers. It's new and exciting.
The theme is a strong one. The show is called The Apotropaeic Effect, a word that comes from the Greek "to ward off" and describes the centuries-old folklore inherent in using an object or symbol to ward off evil. This could be as simple as tying a red thread around the wrist, an act of protection in Jewish Kabbalah mysticism.
"Red is a strong colour and means protection in so many cultures," she said. After noticing a celebrity on television wearing a red string bracelet, she discovered, to her surprise, that the red thread had been turning up as an image in her own work. For the past few years she had been painting with no real theme or direction but found that she was repeating images.
"I saw a pattern. I saw meaning in it," Tandy said. "That's how I work. I get involved in the ideas."
Intrigued, she began to study protection symbols that became integral to her new paintings. In one piece the evil eye peers out through a white mist like a sly spirit. In another she depicts a witch's bottle. This custom, possibly of Scottish or English origin, involved filling these talismanic bottles with nails or pins, objects that could hurt a witch, thereby protecting the bearer from harm. Often the protective items are hidden; one painting shows a worn child's shoe that she found on the beach. This shoe would have been hidden in a home, buried under a sill or fireplace, anywhere that energy enters. Blue beads are a Greek form of protection for a baby and Tandy realized she had also been painting beads for some time without knowing why.
The most fascinating image is the red thread. Chinese folklore believes we are born with a red thread tied to us at birth though it remains invisible. The thread connects us to all the people who will be important in our lives, and as we age the thread becomes shorter, drawing those people closer. Does she believe in it herself? The scientific side of the artist is sceptical, yet she acknowledges she still uses protective gestures against the evil eye that her Italian grandmother taught her years ago.
Tandy has been a professional artist for 20 years. Recently, her work was spotted at Chasters Restaurant, and she was invited to join an art publishing company, the Casa Collection, that offers giclee prints for sale. She's had several bouts of withdrawing from the world to work in her studio or be at home with her musician husband and artistic daughter, surfacing only to participate in a local art group organized by Morley Baker of Westwind Gallery where some of her work is shown. This forthcoming show is a sign of a new cycle. She hopes it will launch her into other markets, other opportunities.
The Apotropaeic Effect opens at the Arts Centre in Sechelt with a reception on Wednesday, Feb. 4, at 7 p.m. and runs until March 1. Contact her through www.nadinatandy.com.
