Intersection (artificial-life.net) (2007)

Mary Shannon Will's animation Intersection is part of artificial-life.net, a web-based curatorial project produced by independent curator Diana Sherlock. Artificial-life.net involves three senior Calgary artists, Vera Gartley, Arlene Stamp and Mary Shannon Will, and examines systematic and procedurally-driven conceptual art practices within the realm of generative technology.

In Intersection Shannon Will combines hundreds of layers of colour and pattern with an original musical score by One Yellow Rabbit’s resident composer Richard McDowell and a poetic voice-over performed by the company’s Associate Artist and ensemble member Denise Clarke. Shannon Will scanned dozens of pages of Clarke’s personal journals — which were damaged when the Elbow River flooded its banks in June 2005 — for excerpts of readable text, accidental abstractions and flattened keepsakes. These pages formed templates from which she extrapolated dozens of image files. Each file comprises dozens of layers that have been individually filtered, colour adjusted and manipulated by the artist in Photoshop. Heavily patterned abstract elements — grids, squares and circles — common to Shannon Will’s oeuvre comfortably intermingle with rarely seen scanned images of flattened foliage, binder coils and notebook edges. Finally Shannon Will worked with artist-programmer Michael Pelletier to select, recombine and further alter these files in After Effects to make the 2:26 Flash movie. Importantly, the animation emphasizes how layers of colour, pattern and image affect one another. One’s focus shifts from surface to space; once static twin circles filled with pattern, morph into balls and bounce out of one frame to later appear in another. During this short performance, abstraction and representation fervently commingle.

Although less obviously systematic than some of her earlier works, Intersection contributes to an ongoing series of abstract portraits and personal narratives. Shannon Will made these paintings by following systems modified by the subject’s choices. For example, Six of Chris’s Colors (1992) used a system that required Calgary painter Chris Cran to select the colours with which she would have to work. While procedurally-driven and often bound by an external constraint, Shannon Will’s aesthetic choices remain deeply personal. Her subjects are close friends or, more recently, names of places to which she has traveled and had important experiences. Intersection’s personal, poetic narrative and aesthetic richness challenge the systematic reductionism and rigid logic common to much conceptual art. It also implodes the often-assumed aesthetic limitations of digital media that stymie discourse across disciplinary boundaries.

Mary Shannon Will is an artist whose work evolves primarily from systemic procedures. Frequently the work incorporates paint and the use of her computer generated patterns. In some instances the work refers to her travels. Other times she involves color choices elicited from friends. Her current work, Intersection, has been described as a moving painting. Shannon Will was born in Sampson, New York and currently splits her time between Calgary, Alberta and Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, notably, at The Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary; Miriam Shiell Fine Art, Toronto; University of Calgary, Calgary; University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge; Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Stride Gallery, Calgary; The Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Rolando Castellon Contemporary Art, San Francisco; and the Susan Whitney Gallery, Regina. Her work has been exhibited in group shows that range from Vancouver, BC; Calgary, Edmonton and Lethbridge, Alberta; Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico to Occala, Florida. Shannon Will’s work is represented in many North American public and private collections.

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