Portraits as Portals: Psychic Mediums Read Unknown Artists
A Project by Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick at Art Windsor-Essex
I have learned that we are all psychic to some degree. Call it premonition, gut feeling, hunch, sixth sense, intuition — we all have it. A medium, however, is a psychic person who has special abilities, in particular, the ability to communicate with beings on the other side of life, i.e. they function as a door or portal to those residing in the spirit world.
Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick, also known as the collaborative entity DisplayCult, go deep into the world of the psychic medium to explore the etheric energy that resides in an artwork. Rummaging through their own collection as well as distant corners of the basement of Art Windsor-Essex (AWE) the artists selected seven portraits by unknown artists and presented them to psychic mediums for a “reading.”
What ensues is a sort of Russian doll series of portraits.
First, we have the actual portraits. These pictures are at various levels of skill and sophistication. They are mostly oil paintings on canvas or board. There is at least one embroidery, shown below.
All the portraits share a certain charm, as well as poignancy. Perhaps it’s because of their status as abandoned, forgotten works. Like all art, they hold a power, a tightly coiled energy, as they encapsulate a physical remnant of an individual’s creative journey, no matter how distant in time.
The second set of portraits is provided through the psychic medium’s descriptions of the artists, the creators of these unknown items.
We might learn what the artist looked like, what they were wearing, their state of mind, their reasons for doing this particular work, where they were physically, and, where they were in terms of their place in society. We might learn about their feelings and various problems, like depression or debt, or any combination of the preceding.
How a psychic medium acquires or develops these skills is baffling to me.
The psychic medium gazes at a portrait, with intensity, and soon enough, a message, or a vision, is received. We learn, for example, “…he may have used alcohol to avoid his feelings coming up..,” or, “…he actually didn’t want to do this…”
Concurrently, the viewer is looking at the video portraits of the psychic mediums themselves.
I suppose the group of psychic mediums depicted here, is fairly average, in terms of looks, dress and demeanour. My sense is, this could be any random twelve people on the Dufferin bus, at rush hour.
The videos are definitely a spectacular element of this exhibition. Giant, ultra high resolution, flat screen monitors are placed vertically, snug against the gallery walls, each displaying a mesmerizing, nearly life-size, image of a psychic medium against a dark background. The psychic medium’s voice emerges from directional speakers placed in the ceiling, so that the viewer, seated on a low bench, is enveloped by sound and image.
And finally, we have the largest Russian doll, the fourth portrait, the meta portrait, which suggests a society in transition and upheaval, one recoiling from the spectacle of war, fearful of looming climate change, technological transformation, and one where an interest in psychics, and all manner of paranormal gifts, is on the rise. This interest in psychic phenomenon was particularly strong during the pandemic and continues today.
I was very excited to get to this absorbing exhibition and to think about the lasting power of objects. The Arts Windsor-Essex, new to me, is a true contemporary art venue. On another floor was an exhibition called Love Languages with works by Erika de Frietas and David Bobier among others and I was fortunate to take that in too.
Just across the river, of course, lies the Detroit Institute for the Arts, and the stunning Diego Rivera murals, room upon room filled with Picassos, Cezannes and Van Goghs, a sprawling current show of work by Tiff Massey. And just a few blocks away is the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD,) which currently has a show by the US-based, Botswana-born artist and educator Meloko Megosi.
It’s a four hour drive.
annetteandquebec 