Stephanie de Couto Costa: Anthology of Mourning
to
Alberta Printmakers Gallery and Studio 4025 4 Street SE, PO Box 6821 Station D, Calgary, Alberta T2P 2E7
Stephanie de Couto Costa, "The Archives (detail)," 2018
photolithograph on Kyzoke paper, wood, 8' x 39"
Anthology of Mourning is a contemporary printmaking exhibition by Montreal-based artist Stephanie de Couto Costa exploring expanded notions of mourning from an ethnological perspective. This installation includes printed works and drawings, (often referred to as still lifes and tapestries) to reflect on how our heritage, belief systems, and genealogy effects or guides our experiences of grief.
“The works in this exhibition explore the expanded notions of mourning; meaning not confined to the loss of loved ones, but includes displacement, loss of identity, community, ideals, and loss of self. More specifically, mourning is examined from an ethnological perspective, reflecting on how our heritage, belief systems, and genealogy effects or guides our experiences of grief. In Anthology of Mourning, these ideas are explored through printed works and drawings, often referred to as still lifes and tapestries. The works are created from the assemblage of an extensive collection of imagery and a visual lexicon that I have been building and referencing throughout my practice.
There is a strong presence of textile designs and traditions in the works. My family working in this industry, fabric has always been part of my visual landscape evoking notions of labour, class and cultural identity. In my own translation of textile work, I’m interested in exploring cloth as a fleshy extension of the body. Cloth and patterning becomes a communicative adornment, expressing something the body cannot. It’s a means of hiding the self but also revealing the self. Through cryptic language, repetition and the appropriation of traditional motifs, the works act as pictograms using patterning as text, revealing a desire to establish a dialogue between past and present, seeking to keep what as left alive.” - Stephanie de Couto Costa