THIS TOWN USED TO BE MOSTLY WHITE. NOW IT IS COLOURFUL.

THIS TOWN USED TO BE WHITE. NOW IT IS COLOURFUL.
Acrylic paint, acrylic matte medium, varnish and collected house paint flakes  from the town of Lunenburg NS, on board.
28″ x 35″
Finalist in the 2016 RBC Painting Competition

THIS TOWN USED TO BE WHITE. NOW IT IS COLOURFUL. is a quote recorded from a citizen during the LHPP. They were referencing the recent history of colourful buildings in Lunenburg, which historically, would have been painted mostly White, Black and Red (Oxblood), the limited palette before industrial paint pigmentation. This phrase also connotes an undercurrent – to the legacy of “Whiteness” in Nova Scotia’s ongoing history of colonialism and racism.

This piece emerged while thinking about the relationships between notions of heritage and progress in a local context, through the paint itself; its qualities, limits and history.  Part of the Lunenburg House Paint Project, this work uses chips of paint collected as I went door-to-door collecting house paint. The paint, like skin and scare tissue, is a marker of its history, including weather, repairs, marks and previous colours.