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2001 Earth Odyssey - Katja Kessin, aka MacLeod
(Doctoral candidate, Ph.D. in Humanities Program, Concordia University)

Abstract:

I am a Canadian artist who grew up in Hamburg, Germany and emigrated to Montreal in the early Eighties. Permanent displacement made me acutely aware of the wide-ranging effects of loss of adequate textual language, or "mother tongue". In order to explore the communicative properties of images versus textual accounts, in January 2001 I embarked on a project entitled 2001 Earth Odyssey: a visual diary, comprised of an acrylic painting per week on stretched, 10" x 12" canvasses. When I viewed the completed series it became apparent that with a single glance I could instantly recall the events of an entire year. In contrast, when consulting a written diary, such a feat would be impossible, as it would take a considerable amount of time to read the sequence of events; thus the recollection would not be instantaneous. The idea was to directly paint onto the canvas without prior thumbnail sketches, in order to capture the previous week in a simple image, not in an illustrative but in an intuitive, symbolic fashion. For a painter of usually highly detailed, large-scale paintings, this allowed for a minimum of self-censorship, which in turn permitted a fresh, uninhibited approach to painting. 2001 Earth Odyssey is my attempt to visually capture the life of one human being on our planet - myself - over the course of the year 2001. The series will be exhibited at the MdlC NDG in Montreal, Summer 2002.

Katja Kessin, 2002

2001 Earth Odyssey - titles

1. Primal Scream (Urschrei)

2. Beware! (Vorsicht!)

3. Snow Angel (Schneengel)

4. Stranger (Fremdling)

5. Night Flight (Nachtflug)

6. ME: Portrait of the Artist (Ich: Selbstportrait)

7. Kiss Good-bye (Tschuesskuss)

8. Back Off (Rutsch’ mir den Ruecken ‘runter)

9. Portrait of the Artist in a Straight Jacket (Selbstbildnis mit Zwangsjacke)

10. Portrait of Pooky (Pooky)

11. Mask (Maske)

12. Star (Stern)