Biophiles

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Teena Dickerson

Roots, bronze and alabaster, 2019

Teena Dickerson

Biophiles is the innate human tendency to seek connection to nature. Poet Mary Oliver described this feeling as "a sudden awareness of the citizenry of all things within one world", a communion with all living things. In this work, I use the language of animals and plants to explore themes of our intimately shared human experiences.

I was always jealous when I heard that master carvers say the sculpture is already complete within the marble, they just have to chisel away the excess stone. I have never felt that my worker were already inside the inorganic microcrystaline wax from which I carve my models. In contrast, I caught the images for the Biophiles series on the wind, in puffs of steam, and in flashed glances landing on the spiraling edge of a Bighorn sheep's head or an owl's eye. On my knees, in the trees, I understood how the fern unfurls and I could feel it in my spine. I felt the salmon's drive for Source when I was homesick. In the meadow, saturated with the scent of bee balm and sage, I was the owl's radial attention when I listened and watched so closely for guidance. Sometimes I made these pieces for others who reached for spirituality like an eagle or meaning in dark moments of life like a dragonfly.

These sculptures are carved, cast, and set in, in bronze, silver, gold, stone, and resin. The figures and forms sit in contemplation of love, nurturing, healing, grief, wisdom, strength, resiliency, belonging and renewal. Each animal and plant represents the characteristics I have taken on in my prayers, contemplations, and what I am learning about citizenry and connection. The Biophiles are the figurative bronze sculptures, the wearers of this jewellery, and each of us who have felt communion with nature.

June 20 - Aug 15, 2019

in the Viewpoint Gallery

5205 48 Ave. Red Deer, AB