Come experience Fiona Moes Pel's new exhibition Held in the Now, at the SAMC Gallery inside TWU's Alloway Library, November 30 – January 9, 2021.
Artist Lunchtime Talk | December 9, 11:00 – 11:30 a.m. | TWU Langley campus - 22500 University Drive, Langley, B.C.
Reflection by Alysha Creighton, MFA, Sessional Assistant Professor of Art + Design
The SAMC gallery is honored to present Held in the Now, Fiona Moes Pel’s solo exhibition of drawings and sculptures.
Pel’s work takes on special significance during the darkening days of December as we move towards the winter solstice. Many Christian traditions observe the season of Advent during this time by lighting candles on the Advent wreath, each week lighting a new candle. The diminishing daylight meets the gathering candlelight in the journey towards Christmas. Pel’s work, which meditates on light, shadow and the passage of time is a fitting exhibition to guide the TWU community towards the great mystery of Christmas.
"Many Christian traditions observe the season of Advent during this time by lighting candles on the Advent wreath, each week lighting a new candle. ...Pel’s work, which meditates on light, shadow and the passage of time is a fitting exhibition to guide the TWU community towards the great mystery of Christmas."
In a season that is often characterized by bustle and overcommitment, Pel’s drawings carve out a space for silence and contemplation. Pel’s process involves drawing and redrawing shadows as they pass through everyday glass objects—mapping the path of light over time. This meditative process opens both artist and viewer to a more expansive experience of time; to the “poetic and embodied experience of time” that Pel seeks to archive through her work (Pel, 2019).
Art critic John Berger suggests that while a photograph stops time, a drawing “encompasses time.” The drawn image does not simply capture a moment but rather “contains the experience of looking” (Berger, 1976). Pel’s drawings form a record of slow, sustained attention, and invite the viewer into an encounter with the sublime in the everyday. Her delicate, abstract drawings archive the small ways that the divine breaks into our daily lives, awakening us to God's immanence in the most ordinary of moments.
Artist Statement
“Chronology, the time which changes things, makes them grow older, wears them out, and manages to dispose of them, chronologically, forever. Thank God there is kairos too: again the Greeks were wiser than we are. They had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Kairos is not measurable. Kairos is ontological. In kairos we are, we are fully in isness, not negatively, as Sartre saw the isness of the oak tree, but fully, wholly, positively. Kairos can sometimes enter, penetrate, breakthrough chronos: the child at play, the painter at his easel, Serkin playing the Appassionata are in kairos. The saint in prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother reaching out her arms for her newborn baby are in kairos.” - Madeleine L’Engle
Kairos, the poetic and embodied experience of time, is what I attempt to capture in this new body of work. Drawing, in time, has become for me a ritual of slowing down, demanding an awareness of seeing the now, a holding in the present. These resulting artworks are a shadowland, a layered cartographic record of the collision of chronos and kairos, reminding me of all that I can see and all that I cannot.
These works are investigations of the path of light and resulting shadows through everyday glass objects. This experience of working with the movement of light over time has slowly become a confrontation with the sublime; I’ve become increasingly aware of the ineffability of recording these moments and of archiving ordinary time.
"Drawing, in time, has become for me a ritual of slowing down, demanding an awareness of seeing the now, a holding in the present. These resulting artworks are a shadowland, a layered cartographic record of the collision of chronos and kairos, reminding me of all that I can see and all that I cannot."
About the Artist
Using a range of materials, Fiona’s art practice is anchored in a curiosity around light and time as these phenomena relate to our embodied experiences. Moes Pel has a Master of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University. She lives with her husband and daughter in East Vancouver where she makes and teaches art.
About School of the Arts, Music + Culture at Trinity Western University
SAMC is home to some of the most collaborative people on campus. SAMC professors are people of faith and experts in their fields who are committed to seeing you thrive. As your mentors, they will build a safe and welcoming space where you will be challenged to take bold steps, explore ideas of faith and meaning, and push the boundaries of your discipline—to fearlessly engage with and transform culture.
See also — 'Appreciating the gift of life to its fullest': Panagiotis Peter Sarganis' new exhibition inhale - exhale at TWU SAMC Gallery:
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About Trinity Western University
Founded in 1962, Trinity Western University is Canada’s premier Christian liberal arts university dedicated to equipping students to establish meaningful connections between career, life, and the needs of the world. It is a fully accredited research institution offering liberal arts and sciences, as well as professional schools in business, nursing, education, human kinetics, graduate studies, and arts, media, and culture. It has four campuses: Langley, Richmond-Lansdowne, Richmond-Minoru, and Ottawa. TWU emphasizes academic excellence, research, and student engagement in a vital faith community committed to forming leaders to have a transformational impact on culture. Learn more at www.twu.ca or follow us on Twitter @TrinityWestern, on Facebook and LinkedIn.