Paula Jean Cowan: bit
June 9 to July 10, 2005
With a self-deprecating sensibility and wry humour, Thamesford artist Paula Jean
Cowan creates animated vignettes in which her pseudo-biographical character
encounters (or creates) a series of situations that depict minor and major
failures, foibles and absurdities. Cowan believes that "a good sense of
humour is the best line of defense against life's vicissitudes" and that
wit has the potential to punish, subvert, poke fun, instruct, unify and empower
- compelling tools for addressing difficult or painful subjects. Cowan's
animated character is both the butt of the joke (the laughable human), and the
satirist, capable of laughing at her own inadequacies and inabilities. The
character's physicality - her gender and corpulence - are immediate indications
that she is the butt, however she is clearly self-aware and empowered by the
duality of her role. Tellingly, Cowan writes and performs the vignettes, records
her performances on video, and then digitally transforms herself into the
animated character. The resulting projected animations are delightful
self-portraits, couched in the language and aesthetics of comic humour and
personal narrative. Cowan currently lives and works in Guelph.
Image: Paula Jean Cowan, twirl, 2004, animation cell,
watercolour pencil, ink and graphite on paper.