Emily van Lidth de Jeude

With huge thanks to the Gibsons Public Art Gallery and Canada Council for the Arts for putting their confidence in me, I can FINALLY announce that  w h a t . h o m e  will be coming home to BC, where it all began.  In 2017 I began interviewing residents of BC's west coast on the subject of 'home'. I had some idea of where the topics might go, but I was surprised again and again by the amazingly heart-full, extremely unexpected, and often challenging stories that emerged. I've discovered through this work and other interview-based projects I've done that in any cross-section of humanity there will be a deep exploration of belonging, and a desire to make the best of always surprising circumstances. This project puts this on display.  w h a t . h o m e  installation in Amsterdam -- photo by Igor Sevcuk The woman in this image went from living as a small child in a mud hut in Mexico to living in a mansion. She now resides with her partner and children in British C...

1994, Royal Academy of Visual Art, the Hague, Netherlands: My first painting instructor showed up to my studio during the first week and told me to get rid of the acrylics. He pointed to a painting sitting drying under the table, and described the dullness; the surface quickly losing any and all beauty it might have possessed just minutes before. So I did, and have been bonded to a series of ever-more-ecologically-friendly oil paints and mediums ever since. I've used oils for nearly thirty years now, and I LOVE them. I love the smell, the feeling of them, the way they layer and all the ways I can scratch and draw through them. I grew up as a painter with oils... and in less than two weeks I'll be participating in a live painting event where oils are not an option (not allowed due to VOC's, and also because paintings must be dry and hung by morning!) So here I am teaching myself a new skill in a hurry!!! It turns out very little of my painting style and technique translat...

Un-boxing at Plas Bodfa (Wales) photo from Julie Upmeyer It's been interesting to follow the Un-boxing project on its travels so far. Gudrun Filipska's Arts Territory Exchange creation, a box of contributions from artists all over the world, has been making its way slowly from one exhibition space to another, and as an artist participant, I get to witness the remarks of curators along the journey. So here I link you through to curator Jane Linden's essay from La Vieille Closerie, Sainte-Croix-de-Mareuil in Aquitaine: " Curatorial Reflections on Un-boxing at Sainte-Croix-de-Mareuil by Jane Linden ".  Jane has also posted some photos from the box's visit to France on her instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lavieillecloserie/ process of Un-boxing at Plas Bodfa photo from Julie Upmeyer part of my own contribution to Un-boxing, displayed at Plas Bodfa photo from Julie Upmeyer

Me at 7, trying to be an artist. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist. Or a botanist, or a hair-dresser. My parents and grandparents gave me wonderful art supplies, and my father even made me a palette with a hole in it for my thumb, and positioned the kitchen stool in front of the wall of our trailer for me to use as a painting stool. That’s me in the photo, in the early nineteen-eighties, feeling wonderful and accomplished, but with absolutely no idea of what it meant to “be an artist”. So What, Exactly, Is an Artist? I'm an artist, now. Twenty-five years and two kids after I got my degree in visual arts, my career is built on helping people reach beyond societal expectations to un-silence themselves, and connect genuinely with the world we inhabit. I do paint, and I do have gallery exhibitions, but I also tromp in the forests, use materials I never imagined would one day be called “materials”, and make art I never imagined would be called “art.” The focus of my work is t...

I've begun a new project!   One Solar Year is an observation of our shared, fragile, resilient humanity over the course of (surprise!) one solar year! I began the project at the previous winter solstice, and plan to write over a hundred poems before the next winter solstice, each inspired and combined with a portrait of wildness around my home. Our human experience isn't separate from the ecology around us; it's completely integral to it. The dewdrops, the haggard plants emerging from the snow, the wilting blossoms in the heat dome; they're part of our psyche, even when we don't notice them. I'm noticing them. One Solar Year is an Instagram project, which may or may not become a book in the future. If you'd like to follow it, go here: https://www.instagram.com/onesolaryear/  Thank you for your support. 🧡

Visual and film artist Lidia Patriasz paints the silhouette of my mother, Lyn van Lidth de Jeude, during a performance of my work, SuperMAMA, 2010. All the women who participated in this production were mothers; most were also visual artists or musicians, and these two were also preschool teachers. Photo by Adrian van Lidth de Jeude. As a teen, I never really thought about becoming a mother. Finding the elusive “true love” — yes! But not kids. I was going to find a man who was supportive of my political views (and would understand there is nothing actually “political” about equal rights), and spend my life busting up the patriarchy with gusto! Through the amazing art career I had planned, I was going to save us from climate change AND our degrading societal norms, by showing the world what absolute tools for the patriarchy we’ve been, and getting us out from under the shoe of the Man. Yeah. So… that didn’t go quite as planned. My man was not un supportive, he was just mild-man...