by Marion Landry

I’m someone who learns by doing. When curious about something I am compelled to investigate. Direct immersion brings me closer to the thing I am curious about, and that experience gives me firsthand knowledge. With that knowledge, a new question arises, and so goes the cycle of life. I have re-invented my life a few times already in order to try something new, and this quest for new experiences also applies to my art practice. My return to university has encouraged me to explore many different painting styles, subjects and techniques making it challenging to define exactly what I paint. That’s okay because it is the very reason for my return to school: to experience something new and to challenge myself with new questions.

For these reasons, I was really excited when I saw the opportunity to intern at rennie collection. It would be a great opportunity to get out of the classroom and try something new –something I was curious about. The opportunity to spend the summer surrounded by the work of Rodney Graham — an important photo-conceptual artist — would really help me understand his process. Conceptual art was something a bit foreign to me, but if I immersed myself in it, something might sink in. I had one month to research, ask questions and develop a scripted tour about a selection of work curated for the show. The gallery would not be providing any information for me to memorize and regurgitate, which is often the case in the classroom. Instead, I would need to develop my own questions.

This put me in a panic, because reading texts about the work of Rodney is exactly like being in a classroom: it’s all about someone else’s interpretation of the work. It might give me another level of understanding, but it didn’t allow me to experience the work for myself. In fact, it was not until I got a private tour from the artist himself that I began to feel confident talking about the work.

There was no formal introduction by Rodney–no specific information I was asked to share, no rules to respect or strict stipulations on how to conduct my tours of the exhibition. The artist simply took us on a journey. Piece by piece he casually explained how each artwork came to be. My anxiety dissipated as I slowly started to understand that Rodney’s work is about something I can relate to: the experience of life itself.

When Rodney talks about his art it is not detached from him. It’s as if he is talking about his own life. He has a nonchalance and a comfort level that I didn’t get from any of the texts that I read about his work. During the tour I experienced his humor, saw him pause at times to think, witnessed his passion and came to understand how he comes up with the ideas behind his work. His art is funny and strange, but it is also complex and rooted in layers of first hand knowledge and personal experience. It is curiosity that leads him to the need to really experience something in order to understand it fully. His art is a manifestation of that experience.

Somehow I started to make connections between Rodney’s conceptualism and my need to experience something in order to learn. I had never considered the quest for new experiences as an artistic process in and of itself. In the end, what I have learned from spending the summer with the art of Rodney Graham, as well as my experience with the artist, is that my own art doesn’t have to be about a subject. It can also be about a question. Indeed, it can even simply be the question itself. According to Rodney, art is circular. It starts where it ends, ad infinitum. So here I am at end of my internship at rennie collection and at the beginning of yet another semester. What will my next painting style be? I am not sure, but perhaps it now depends on my next big question.