House Inspiring Peace


House Inspiring Peace 2015... in an exhibit entitled Arche-TEXTures University of Alberta Museums Enterprise Square Galleries, Edmonton Curated by Melinda Pinfold PHD	Shuen (rice) paper, silk, canvas, Conté, charcoal, ink, acrylic, Canadian maple substructure, Edison incandescent lights, 462 cm length x 320 cm width x 335 cm height

I use image of the 'house' as a metaphor for the 'home'.
'Home' provides the foundation and with such we build on to become who we are. - Amy Loewan

Excerpt from Didectic of Exhibition by Curator Melinda Pinfold PhD

     For over two decades, Amy Loewan has been exploring powerful visual metaphors of peace and harmony. The artist's works cohere physically, as in the textual weavings of her scrolls and paintings; conceptually, in her nuancing of the theme of peace; and culturally, in her seamless blending of East and West spirituality.
       Within Arche-TEXTures, House Inspiring Peace (2015) is the focal point of exhibition. With House Inspiring Peace, Loewan has constructed for us, a spiritual shelter. Its underlying form (post, lintel, gable, peaked roof) is that of one the simplest and most iconic of house structures – thus, it is the archetypal house, in the Jungian sense. The shuen (rice) paper elements encasing the body of the house -its skin– are complex and coherent, although they are inherently and materially, temporal and fragile. Equally fragile are the many thoughts of peace, penned on strips of shuen paper by viewers over the years; these are woven into the walls of the house's exterior. Within, ink brushed in traditional Chinese fashion in the artist's hand, are the philosopher Lao Tzu's meditations on the nature of peace and the path to its realization. As we stand within House Inspiring Peace, and reflect, we come to realize that we may choose to become, each of us, at the heart of peace.
      The peripheral, perambulatory space that encircles and embraces House Inspiring Peace features the artist’s new open series of 15 smaller paintings: The Contemplations. With this Loewan explores what might be described as an inner, spiritual landscape - revealed and fixed in time as Loewan arrested the effects of numerous washes of complex, luminous colour, in imminent relationship with elemental geometric form. As displayed, the paintings and Arche-TEXTures offer the viewers a walking meditative experience.

House Inspiring Peace, front view

detail with silk embossed shuen paper in the front

shuen paper wall panels

interior of house

interior of house with Edison incandescent light bulbs

detail of wall panel, shuen paper weave with charcoal & peace messages written by public from previous exhibitions

installation in progress

house interior with Canadian Maple substructure

back view of house with Shuen paper wall panels