M.E. SPARKS INFO
inyourpainting
in_your_painting, 2022 is part of a series of browser-based works exploring quotation, collage, and language. Drawing from the history of Dada poetry, in_your_painting uses a hand-coded computer program to generate a series of phrases, which seem to lead us through someone else’s space. The narrative is partially constructed through a random sampling of titles from the mid-twentieth-century paintings of Balthus, all of which depict the young female body. Printed iterations of this work were included in the exhibitions and a Rag in the Other at the Alternator Centre and We can only hint at this with words at the Gordon Smith Gallery for Candian Art.
inyourpainting
to-do-to-do, 2021 is a collaborative interactive website created with Matthis Grunsky for the Number 3 Gallery SPAM series. The project, developed in the height of the COVID-19 lock-down, features a series of small hand-coded website that explore the act of list making as tool for navigating times of uncertainty and isolation. Special thanks to all the list-makers who shared their personal to-do lists with us
blankpage
Blank Page Melancholia, 2020 is a browser-based work created for the School for Poetic Computation's Digital Love Languages. The website samples from a collection of texts to generate ever-changing observations, affirmations and words of encouragement for anyone feeling stuck.
sitefactory
Inside Out, 2018 is a collaborative project developed with Matthis Grunsky and the mobile workspace Site Factory in Vancouver, BC. Reconstructed studio objects (blank canvases, chairs, ladders, easels) are staged within the space of a modified school bus, becoming a fractured screen for a shifting projection of pattern and colour. The projected colours, sampled randomly from an archive of historical artworks, act as a method of mapping the transformation of three-dimensional space into a flattened, two-dimensional picture, mimicking the flat space of a painting. This project emerged from an exploration into the trope of the artist’s studio, its depiction throughout art history, and its relevance amidst a “post-studio” condition currently dictated by prohibitive rental costs.