Why?
Marcus Dénommé
9 February – 3 April 2024
O2 window exhibition space (Stanley and Baker St. on Nelson Trading Co. building)
Oxygen Art Centre is excited to present the installation entitled, “Why?” by Nelson printmaker Marcus Dénommé. The third exhibition in their O2 window exhibition space, located along the Stanley St. side of the Nelson Trading Co. building, will be on view from February 9, 2024, to April 3, 2024.
The new artwork by Dénommé is a mixed media silkscreen print/collage on stretched kitakata paper. The artist connects the installation with the colonial genocide in Gaza and is specifically inspired by the organization Unmute Gaza who works to amplify the images and writing by journalists attempting to report on the violence.
Unmute Gaza is working to amplify documentation of what is going on in Gaza by creating artworks from the pictures made by journalists experiencing the violence that began on October 7, 2024. The organization then wheat pastes them across their cities in a small gesture to say “WE DO NOT AGREE, WE ARE NOT COMPLICIT, WE ARE NOT LOOKING AWAY. So we print and paste. Print and paste.”
Alongside the installation, Dénommé shares his own personal wheatpaste recipe:
Mix 3tbsp white flour with 10tbsp water until fully combined. Add 1 cup of boiling water to the mixture, and move to medium heat on the stovetop. Mix vigorously until boiling. Remove from heat and let cool.
**Adding acrylic medium, wood glue, white sugar, and/or vinegar will improve the durability of the wheatpaste.
The O2 installation, “Why?” by Marcus Dénommé, on view from February 9, 2024, to April 3, 2024, draws on the activism by organizations such as Unmute Gaza that stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and work to dismantle the ideological and institutional scaffolding of Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid against the Palestinian people.
O2 is a window exhibition space located in downtown Nelson, B.C. It is an extension of Oxygen Art Centre and serves as an alternative exhibition space for regional, emerging artists.
For more information about the artist, the installation, and O2, click here.
Image Credit: Marcus Dénommé, Headshot, Photo credit Julia Pepler, 2023; Courtesy the Artist
© 2024 Oxygen Art Centre
