Date: Thursday, March 15th, 2018
Time: 7:30 pm
Place: Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC Campus, 515 West Hastings Street (between Seymour and Richards Streets) in the Diamond Lounge
Speaker: Pnina Granirer
Topic: Light Within The Shadows: A Painter’s Memoir
Outline:
A quiet, but profound revolution occurs in an artist’s life when after a lifetime as a painter, she decides to lay down her brushes and paint the world with words instead. This evening’s talk attempts to give an insight into the creative process of the transition from the visual to the literary.
Using a short Power Point presentation, I shall introduce the various problems and challenges that have to be resolved when writing a book, as opposed to the creation of a painting. The most dramatic difference between these two is the element of time. While working on a visual piece, the artist sees the work in its entirety during its creation. Each addition is visible as soon as it happens and all changes are easily seen. Not so with writing. Reading the written words requires time, and once they are written and the writer continues, the first text recedes, allowing for the new words to appear. The writer cannot see all the words at one given moment; time is needed to access the story and to become fully aware of its contents.
Conceived as a play in three acts, the story unfolds from my hometown on the Danube River in Romania, to art school in Jerusalem, Israel, followed by three years spent in the USA, time in Montreal and later in Paris, finally settling in Vancouver. I shall be sharing my successes and failures, addressing issues of dislocation, ‘otherness,’ and the uprooted soul’s wish for permanency and belonging.
For the fortunate ones who have not experienced war, Fascism and Communism, the historical references seen through personal experience might be enlightening and revealing of unfamiliar realities.
From my experience as a visual artist, I realised that most people know almost nothing about the creative process and the politics of the art world. This talk will give the listeners a glimpse into this unknown territory.