A Distance Transformed (2017)

Raymond Boisjoly

8988 Patterson Road

Area: City Centre
Location: Artwork is located in front of the ARTS Units (Artist Live/ Work) along Patterson Road and Sexsmith Road sides of the building

Materials: High-temperature-fired porcelain enamel on steel panels on galvanized, powder-coated, free-standing steel frames.

Program: Private
Ownership: Private
Sponsored By: Concord Pacific Developments Inc.

Description of Work

Twenty human scaled metal frames integrated into the street scape of the new Arts District neighbourhood. Each frame houses two text based artworks which can viewed from many vantage points adding colour to the street experience.

Artist Statement

The text communicates the complexity of site in relation to ongoing changes to the urban environment as well as the wider world. A focus of the writing are the ideas of space, place, time and transformative processes such as growth and decay. While the casual passerby may find something meaningful in their encounter with this text, others who negotiate the neighbourhood on a regular basis will find alternate meanings. Artist, Raymond Boisjoly's primary motivation for the text is the consideration of the experiences of urban Indigenous peoples.

Visually, the text is meant to convey a certain confidence or authority over concerning its message. The text is impacted by its colour palette and the inclusion of a subtle imagery. The colours, pink, grey, burgundy and orange (along with white), are chosen in relation to their mixed character. None of them are necessarily seen as originary or pure. Each of them exists as an already modified hue. The imagery is a digitally synthesized image of a cloud. While Indigenous cultural practices and politics often concern negotiations of land, those that live beyond their home territories might re-figure their relation to distant places which share the same sky.