BIO

Dana Tosic holds a BFA from Queen’s University and an MFA from the University of Calgary, both with a specialization in printmaking. In 2010 she was selected for the Tim Mara Graduate Student Exchange in the Printmaking Department at the Royal College of Art, London, U.K. Dana’s visual art practice weaves in and out of the discipline of printmaking, pushing the boundaries of the medium and engaging with the roles of technology and art in contemporary society. Working across print, installation and digital media, her research includes explorations into embodied perception and memory and the application of digital and design technologies to traditional practices in printmaking, presented at the Printopolis International Symposium in Printmaking in Toronto in 2010. Alongside her art practice, Dana is a Principal at Design Workshop Architects and its sister practice Future Workshop, where she leads the firms’ public art projects. She has exhibited across Canada, USA and UK, including three temporary public art installations: Elegy for Every Moment, Nuit Blanche, Toronto, 2014; How Bright is Our Future? Interior Design Show, Toronto, 2018; Conversation Pieces, The Globe and Mail Centre for Design TO, 2019. Her prints have been featured on ArtSync TV (Rogers), 2011 and Printmaking Off the Beaten Track (Richard Noyce, Bloomsbury Publishing) 2013.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Focusing on fleeting yet intimate moments that occur throughout the day, this series of work explores notions of time and memory, and the body’s potential to imply narrative through movement. The images presented reveal moments where something is happening even though it may not appear to be. The body is engaged in quotidian motions such as getting dressed/ undressed, tying shoes, peeling fruit, sewing, washing, eating – motions in which we engage regularly, and often in solitude. We learn these movements and perform them automatically. Because conscious thought is not required, they offer a time for reflection and introspection, allowing the mind to be both absorbed and disengaged. Although the intimacy in the moment portrayed is not meant to be shared, it nevertheless invites the viewer to dwell upon it and to wonder what is really taking place.

Rather than depicting a single instant, these images portray the time elapsed and the change in the body’s position, weight, and direction that occur while engaged in a particular activity over a given length of time. Thus, the duration of time that is being presented is not defined by start and end points, but is rather continuous time. We are given a fleeting glimpse of where the body was, and a suggestion of the activity with which it was engaged. Therefore, it seems that the very memory of the body, and the motions it employed in a specific task, leave their vestiges on the paper.

In this series of work I wish to contrast the reality of the actual experience of movement with the apparent gap between both the desire and reason for completing an action, and the mechanics of the movement itself. Thoughts and emotions experienced at the time necessarily affect the way that the movement is executed; small, intimate measures of movement tell a story, even if the person doesn’t intend it. I am interested in the dichotomy between movement even within stillness. Although the moment portrayed may appear still, there is nevertheless movement – whether it is breath, subtle shifts in position, weight, or direction that occur while engaged in a particular activity over a given length of time, or implied continuous movement, from the moment just before the instant portrayed, to that which follows once the instant has passed.