MARY KECZAN-EBOS

Mixed media

905-332-3380
mebos@cogeco.ca

My work reinvents, recreates and remembers the space that it occupies. Some might call it an installation. I recently realized that I have had a recurring dream about a house. Sometimes only once a year or two, sometimes a few times in a week. The house has walls; or not, windows and doors; or not, my family are in the house with me--that is--my siblings, not my children--when we were young, with my parents. Sometimes I know the house is here in Canada , sometimes it is in the Hungary that is a memory of the stories my parents and grandparents and their immigrant friends talked about. To reinvent my dreams I use paintings as well as costume, text and floor pieces. These recreated houses are ephemeral and depend entirely on the architectural space being occupied.

They are the "staged" manifestations of the memories of my dreams.

Marks of various shapes that can be put together to have meaning as either Hungarian (my own first language) or English, or any other 'language' have a great attraction for me. For this reason, some of the constructions I make can have power as words and others reshape themselves to become images or patterns. These signs are the union of form--of mark and meaning--the maps that "trace" our existence: the evidence of our dreams and memories.

On a very theoretical and intellectual level my work is an exploration of the arbitrary nature of the meaning of the sign in visual language. That means questioning how a combination of marks on a surface can become imbued with "meaning." And why some combinations of marks become "words" in our culture and other combinations become a figure painted on canvas or sculpted in clay, or how yet other combinations of marks become "abstractions," or even a building: a shape whose meaning is determined by the space that it displaces. How does the body itself become, simultaneously, the text surface, the signifier and the signified. What do the adornments of the body mean? How is it that as soon as there is a consciousness of this "signification" that immediately we are aware of a definite subject and an object? Who decides and how is it determined which of these signs are assigned particular aesthetic qualities? I believe that the cultural and social constructs of gender and race along with ethnicity and class play an important part in the answers to these questions and must always be remembered.

On a very pragmatic level I am interested in how things look, feel, smell and sound. The total experience of my installations is my primary concern. And while I am most interested in the moment of intersection of the meaning of multiple signs: marks that represent the Goddess--particularly images from sites in Eastern Europe, my parents homeland, Runic carvings--also specifically from Eastern Europe, abstract and pictorial/representational visual art and words, it is the total absorption into a complete sensory experience that I am attempting to achieve. The myth of meaning that surrounds all of these elements gives them a power that seems to me naively magical and infinite.

I believe very strongly that artists must be active in their own communities in whatever ways suit them best. I have been on the board of the Hamilton Artists Inc., an artist-run-centre, including completing a term as President. Socially and politically I am committed to addressing the concerns of marginalized groups such as ethnic minorities, women and outsiders. The Bay Area Artists for Women's Art is a group that has been essential to my artistic production. I have been a mentor in the CEMENT Cross Cultural Mentoring program funded by the federal Heritage Ministry. I was a co-chair of the Bay Area Arts Collective for many years. I have had solo exhibitions in public and private galleries as well as artist-run-centres. I have received numerous grants to fund my work.. I am currently completing a PhD in Women's Studies. I have taught wonderful first year students in a Foundations course at York University called “Concepts of Male and Female in the West” that is interdisciplinary and that includes both literature and art. Most recently I have become involved with an exciting group of artists of Hungarian origin.