Things left festering expand. Hold me between thumb and finger. Nanny’s bag, forgotten at the back of a door.
Erica Stocking
October 20 鈥� November 17, 2021 | The Cabinet | GCA Fourth Floor
丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Curated by Denise Oleksijczuk.
Things left festering expand. Hold me between thumb and finger. Nanny鈥檚 bag, forgotten at the back of a door, is part of a series of bags that explore how we carry and make memories. What is the form a memory takes/makes? How do we shape it and with whom do we share it? As a containher, this bag stores and yields.
The decorated straw bag suspended in mid-air exudes a hippy vibe. Its strands weave inside and outside, its shape bloated by a yellowish foam that, when malleable, filled the bag to bursting, encasing a hidden sandwich. The nanny bag, passed down to the artist by her Anglo Indian grandmother, is adorned with an image of the Hindu deity Ganesh, the destroyer of obstacles and evils. Like Mary Poppins鈥� bag in the 1964 film, it is a magic bag: a never-empty container for the necessary and inspired items tied to the mundane, demanding, and wondrous labour of childcare. Extending the work and love of caring for others into the world beyond the cabinet, the artist will buy you a sandwich from Nester鈥檚 Deli (see email address in the list of materials below).
A magic mushroom, set in resin inside a baggy, dangles above the bag from the end of its braided strap. It functions as a supplement that at once completes the work and signals its incompleteness. Resembling a mother鈥檚 nipple, the portal between the baby鈥檚 mouth and its deliriously sweet sustenance, the Golden Teacher shroom is likewise psychoactive. Its presence at the end of the tether proffers the promise of egolessness, and mystical lines of flight.
Things left festering expand. Hold me between thumb and finger. Nanny鈥檚 bag, forgotten at the back of a door, 2021. Nanny鈥檚 bag, construction tarp, ham sandwich on 60% whole wheat bread with mayo, sandwiches available: if you want one, email sandwich.request@gmail.com, oil paint, flexible polyurethane foam, mushrooms, found plastic, found pins, resin.
Biography
Erica Stocking is an artist working at the intersection of sculpture, performance and installation. Her work explores objects as a series of parts in relation to one another which hold space for the inaccessible center that resists knowing. Her work has been exhibited at Artspeak, Mercer Union, The Western Front, and most recently at The Contemporary Art Gallery in The Artist鈥檚 Studio Is Her Bedroom (2020). Stocking's public artworks are part of the City of Vancouver, City of Surrey and 丁香园AV Community Trust Collections. She received her BFA from the Emily Carr Institute (2004) and recently completed an MFA from OCAD University (2021). Stocking is currently a PhD candidate in Visual Arts at York University.
Erica Stocking, Things left festering expand. Hold me between thumb and finger. Nanny鈥檚 bag, forgotten at the back of a door, 2021.