Interview
Margie Kelk
Margie Kelk is a Toronto-based multi-media artist. She takes an exploratory and experimental approach in her art as she appropriates and reconstructs visual fragments of ideas. She uses diverse media, including ceramic, bronze and aluminum sculpture, animation, drawing, painting and digital applications.
Margie is a graduate of Wellesley College, the Johns Hopkins University (PhD), and The Toronto school of Art diploma program.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“My name is Margie Kelk. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, I attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, after which I got a PhD in French and Italian literature from the Johns Hopkins University. I taught at the university level several years after completing my PhD in Romance Languages. Following a strong interest in the visual arts, I studied fine arts at The Toronto School of Art. There I had a particular interest in drawing and printmaking.
I had lived in France and Italy during my undergraduate days and became fascinated with the art I saw around me. I loved the strength of emotional appeal that characterized the work of the Masters. I learned so much about Medieval and Renaissance works simply from spending time looking at them. After I moved to Toronto. I took up art as a full-time career.”
What does your work aim to say? Does it comment on any current social or political issues?
“It is hard to give one particular meaning to artworks which have spanned quite a few years. Most of the series of works that I have created are inspired by political or social agendas, the main one being a passion for environmental protection. That said, I have had solo shows which revolved around the loneliness of the elderly in our media-driven society, and exhibitions evolving from pre-Columbian sculptures in Latin America.
Recently, I have created installations dealing with climate change and the devastating effects it is having on our planet and the wildlife it supports. Trips to Antarctica have made me particularly sensitive to the plight of the creatures which draw their sustenance from life in the Southern Ocean.”
“I do not follow any particular trends. My work is intuitive, and the materials guide me.”
What does your art mean to you?
“My artwork serves as a conduit to self-expression. My current concerns centre on environmental catastrophe, especially ocean ecology, and human interference in the natural world. The artwork is a visual language, an extension of my vocabulary.”
What process, materials, techniques, etc., do you use to create your artwork?
“My mediums include oil on panel, alcohol inks on paper, aluminum, bronze and ceramic sculpture, installation, and stop-motion animation. Nothing is preplanned, and all is spontaneous.”
What’s your favorite artwork and why?
“The Disasters of War is a series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker, Francisco Goya. Harsh depictions of violent conflict show people in extreme suffering, often as they are being brutally massacred.”
“My process is entirely intuitive; I don't plan in advance. I am influenced by the music that I hear, by elements that I discover in the natural world, and by literature. Especially impressive to me are the theatrical details in Dante's Inferno.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“In 2018, I created UnderSee, an exhibition at The Red Head Gallery in Toronto. The installation dealt with marine life in the Southern Ocean. I produced drawings, sculptures and a short stop-motion film revolving around the destruction produced by human pollution in the marine environment. Antarctica was the focus here, as I worked to show my audience what a beautiful continent we are at risk of losing. The installation is documented on my website.
My exhibition, In: FLUX, was held at The Red Head Gallery this past spring once pandemic regulations allowed galleries to open.
Having witnessed melting ice and concurrent habitat destruction in Antarctica, for the last few years, I studied scientific reports about the feasibility of life continuing under adverse conditions in the polar regions. Scientists are not sure how current life forms may adapt to the changing conditions. With In: FLUX, I created my own series of possible life forms in the hope that something may survive. I created the exhibition to emphasize the enormity of the environmental problems we humans have been creating as we blindly lay waste to our natural environment.
