Guest Curator: Boukje Elzinga
For much of her life, art making was part of Bridget Corkery’s everyday existence. After moving with her family to Nelson in the mid-1990s, she was an instructor in Mixed Media at the Kootenay School of the Arts, and later a founding member of the Nelson Fine Arts Centre (now the Oxygen Art Centre). This exhibition will present work spanning nearly two decades of her creative practice, from the early 90s through to her untimely passing in 2013 at the age of fifty-two.
From her early prints to her later mixed media pieces, Bridget’s art always reflects her underlying fascination with her immediate environment. Her vision was unique, independent and often humorous. Though much of the art appears to be whimsical in its use of colour and the juxtaposition of materials and images, it also carries an undercurrent of darkness and references to fear and death. This is particularly evident in the prints Sex and Death Late at Night and her depiction of herself as a skeleton in A Self Portrait.
Bridget expressed the centrality of her family to her life and to her art by the titles she used for her pieces and exhibitions and through her various artist’s statements. For Elevating the Mundane, she stated “…within my limited universe I attempt to coexist with others in an environment of flux, turmoil and dissolution…” and for Budget Crockery “… the paintings [and sculptures] express the tumult of my surroundings. Our volatile household of small children goes from one explosion to the next.” About Mother and Clocks describes her mother’s final years as dementia encroached.
Though the assemblage of insects, bones, leaves, snake skin, paint and glass in Sea Image can be seen as just a playful collage, Bridget said the work came from “… watching my two infant children react to the world around them. I have come to the conclusion that we are born with our fears, they are not learned. Snakes, insects and frogs, cold slimy textures, certain noises, heights and the dark; we come into the world with all these fears and more.”
She uses the Lumber series to describe a “… subject matter [that] is ever present where we live … for many years I earned a living as a cabinet-maker. We plant trees, we cut them up, and we plant them and cut them up again. The methods and consequences of these actions vary but will be with us always. These works are a record of relationship with lumber.”
The Cerra Cola paintings Fall and Varied Thrush and Chinese Lantern of a dead bird and dried plants were made in Bridget’s last year.
Through various media including painting, printmaking, sculpture and woodworking, this collection shows an artist whose work continued to change and evolve, reflecting not only her personal sensibility and many skills, but her interpretation of her environment and events in her life and her humour.
Bridget Corkery
Bridget Corkery was born in England in 1960 and moved with her family at the age of seven to Edmonton, Alberta. A BFA with a major in Printmaking from the University of Alberta in 1981 was followed in 1984 by a Master’s in Fine Arts in Mixed Media at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida and studies in woodworking, cabinet making and textile printing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Bridget Corkery Timeline