Absent Hand – Shelby Charlesworth

Absent Hand – Shelby Charlesworth

Absent Hand – Shelby Charlesworth

Tracing spaces once touched, seeking comfort in an absent hand, I ground my work in personal experiences and a larger social context. Responding in an interdisciplinary manner, I investigate themes of loss, longing, grief, and collective trauma. My interests lie in the slippage between absence and presence; the ephemeral and fixed. Porcelain, embroidery, printmaking, bronze, textiles, and found objects are utilized to create compositions that relate to the temporality and permanence of the body. Repetition and labour are used as linkages to empathy and understanding. Cracked flesh, an aching back, but stillI must persist, sifting through the residue as it falls through my fingers.

Absent Hand (2020-24) is a response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the massive amount of loss experienced all at once in the land that is now called Canada. Research for this project began while I was living outside of the country, prevented from traveling back to see family for over two years.

Unable to comprehend the massive amounts of loss being experienced, I began creating a visualization of the abstract numbers displayed in the media. Presenting data through physical objects offers an alternative visual language to digest information. These lost buttons make one reflect on the clothing they were once attached to, and to whom that clothing once belonged. Clothing holds scent, sweat, stains, and wear from those whose bodies once held them. The objects one owns can often outlive them, becoming evidence of a person’s existence.

For this work, I have created one press-cast porcelain button to commemorate each of the 60 871 people who have died of Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. Each button is unique in that they have an impression of one of my fingers, my thumbs or my palm impressed on the opposite side due to the action of pressing the wet clay into the mould. A needle tool is then used to pierce the button, interrupting the pattern on the back. This gesture leaves an exit wound where the needle has traveled through the porcelain body. Each button is then trimmed and cleaned with a sponge before

being left to dry. The porcelain is then vitrified in the kiln, transforming the material to the color of warm white bone. The 16” x 16” photographs act as portraits, each capturing the unique button with its print of the original impressions as the tens of thousands of buttons rest in the mound. This labourious task is a gesture of care to those who have passed, as well as those who have lost loved ones since the beginning of the pandemic. This work will continue and transform and grow as the pandemic persists.

If you have lost a loved one due to Covid-19, please reach out to the artist to receive an individual press-cast porcelain button as a gesture of recognition and care at shelby.charlesworth@gmail.com.

Shelby Charlesworth is an interdisciplinary artist and educator located in Mohkinstsis (Calgary) where she is a Sessional Instructor for Sculpture at the University of Calgary as well as the Community Partnership Coordinator at the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre. Born in Sikookotoki (Lethbridge), Shelby returned to Alberta to be the Sculpture Technician at the University of Lethbridge after several years spent in the United States receiving her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut in 2021 where she taught as Instructor of Record for Sculpture. Following her MFA, she relocated to Los Angeles where she worked as a studio assistant, sculptor and ceramicist prior to returning to Alberta in 2022.

Charlesworth received her BFA in Painting at ACAD in 2017. She was the 2023 recipient of an Individual Project Grant for her research about the impacts of the opioid epidemic in Canada as well as a Professional Development Grant, both through Calgary Arts Development. She was the 2023 Bursary recipient through Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society for her Artist Residency at Fuse33. She was presented the Artist in Residence Award by the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge for her Artist Residency at Casa in 2022 and she was the recipient of the Pilot Art Award for 2022-23. She is a Board member for CARFAC Alberta as well as the Creative Aging Society, and sat on the Arts Acquisition and Program Committee for the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre from 2023-24. She was a speaker at the University of Lethbridge for their Art NOW series in 2023, Visiting Artist at the National accessArts Centre, as well as at Club 36 located at the Alzheimer’s Society, creating new art processes for seniors with dementia. Her primary focus both through education and personal practice is community engagement and arts accessibility through visual language. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally.

Date:November 9th, 2024  -  January 11th, 2025

Location:Casa - Project Space

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