September 2021: Shanon Playford

Oddments: “Usually, with a gallery show, I configure a set of parameters: theme, subject, size, medium, number of works, style, etc.. Usually, I begin a series with a finished product in mind; a cohesive, defined, confined body of work. This past year, with everything else confining, constricting, troubling & weighing on me (& … pretty much everyone else in the world), I just couldn’t restrict, I didn’t want to plan, or to follow more rules. What you see is what naturally bubbled up. Some are revisitations, some are new ground. Some are paintings that had been waiting - oh so patiently - to be complete. The source images are from life, my own photos, the internet, old magazines, ephemera … They are all singular portraits of a kind: people, places, things, spaces & moments.

What does Mr. Mason have to do with a chrysanthemum? I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? … or maybe I do know. In any case, I think that they all are a part of me, a part of us; Always different, always the same. I usually give the body of work a title. I came up with quite a few over the course of this past year. Some that came close were: Panta Rhei (all is in flux) , All that Arises, Passes, Coming & Going, Beginnings & Endings, Memento Vivere, Oddments, Picture Poems … maybe you have an even better title?”