My pandemic dreams continue to be a great source of imagery. They’ve been visually rich; odd and ambiguous yet not completely meaningless in regard to the context of global events. Rather that focus on physical art that won’t be seen in this locked-down world, I’ve pursued the ideas suggested in these dreams to create a series of short animations. These works are designed for the internet and social media. They are ephemeral things that will only exist on small glowing screens.
Boat
‘Boat’ is a short vignette that attempts to reflect the image of a dream-world. I’m in a city that is dissolving. Buildings are turning into smoky, wispy clouds and the ground is moving like the surface of water. A little wooden boat appears. It’s some kind of lifeboat.
Bridges
In this dream I am on a bridge. It looks somewhat like the bridge at the bottom of Bathurst Street in Toronto, but it is much more complicated and it is connected to many other bridges in some strange Piranesi configuration. There’s a loud, rumbling train approaching. Is it above or below? Or about to run me over? I don’t know where it is or which way I should go to get away.
Hands and Glasses
In this dream, houses have open sides, like stage sets. Odd, but not threatening people visit these houses when we sleep. They take photos of banal things and leave them in drawers where we find them in the mornings. The photos are cut up in different shapes and then stitched together. Some of the stitching is tight, some of it very loose so that there are long threads between the pieces. In this dream world, no one seems concerned about these nocturnal artists, people just look forward to what they will find in the morning..
Song Bird
The sun comes up early in the morning now. There’s much less traffic. the sound of birds greeting the day invades the last moments of sleep. Which, I suppose, lead to this pleasant dream where birds and trees spread through old ruins.