a truth, a fiction... of sabbath clothes and feeling an imposter, 1996 / 1997
Purchased by the art bank collection of the Quebec Museum, 1999 With this work I have recreated and inserted myself into the pictorial space and psychological setting of Isidor Kaufmann's The Friday Night, a painting from the early 1900's in the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum (New York). Wearing a paper dress sewn from a dressmaker's paper pattern in the style of fancy evening wear, I engaged in the process of un-stitching and resewing the pattern pieces to form a blanket in which I then wrapped myself. One of the questions central to this work is "How is it that we endlessly continue to conduct our lives in the patterns, even despite the patterns, of our heritage - individual and collective?"