Rod Goertzen
Migraes
August 8 - August 18, 2022
Gordon Snelgrove Gallery
MIGRAES is an installation that explores my paternal grandparents’ narratives through the combined lenses of migration and aesthetics. Through intuitive art making processes their stories from a Mennonite Heritage are interpreted, retold and/or responded to by using printmaking techniques. My artmaking process, with a focus on the application of ‘migratory aesthetics,’ has materials deconstructed and reassembled, and at times combined with other objects to make collagraph plates, relief plates, viscosity prints, prints on polypropylene and/or installation pieces. The artwork and its presentation in the gallery explore how the repeated acts of migration of centering on the pursuit of freedoms such as the choice of faith, language, education and lifestyle, with a focus on the acquisition of land - reflect and form their and my culture and identity. MIGRAES or migratory aesthetics ultimately helps me to speak to my sense of loss of identity while facilitating a new awareness to engage in the creating of one’s own culture.
Exhibition Reception: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 17, 2022
About the Artist
Rod Goertzen is an MFA candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. He is a printmaker who approaches artmaking from a multimedia process. Rod has exhibited his artwork nationally and internationally.
