I have had dreams so tactile, so vivid, that it wasn’t the details of the story that stayed with me, but the dream space; a room left imprinted on my mind through its wallpaper, or the color and texture of the floor. Reduced to a feeling, the dream’s narrative quietly permeates these aesthetic elements by association.
Years later, coming across a similar pattern or color in the waking world triggers an unshakeable sense of the uncanny; deja vu brings me back into that uneasy space.
This is the feeling evoked by Toronto-based painter Georgina Walker in her series Summer Solitude Fantasies. Representing the concept of phantasmagoria–a dream-like vision, as well as ideas of femininity, ritual and the built environment, these stages are set and left vacant after plays of human interaction and routine; waking, bathing, eating. Scenes quietly vibrate with anticipation of action, or traces of it–lit cigarettes appear in multiple works, themselves evoking a figure just out of frame. In Walker’s depictions of doorways, windows, and portholes, entry and exit are implied.
Working as a Scenic Artist in film and television, the ability to convey character histories in set dressing and tableau carry through to Walker’s art practice. Spaces are rendered vibrantly in oil paint; time established by interior windows, personalities are suggested in style of decor, objects and clothing, while narratives take shape in their placement.
In the absence of shading, spaces in Walker’s paintings are given depth through the use of geometry; overlapping lines determine foreground from back and objects from their surfaces. Pattern gives dimension to these representations of interiors while making them boldly graphic.
In these details, Walker’s paintings hold a beautiful tension between bright and unsettling, dream and nightmare.
Graduating with BFA from OCADU in 2013, Georgina Walker has participated in group shows and residency programs.
You can see more of Walker’s work in her Format portfolio and follow her on Instagram.
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