April Dean: "Blowing in the Wind", Alberta Printmakers, Calgary, Feb. 26 to April 9, 2016

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April Dean, "We Are Never As Brave", 2013, inkjet print on film, 40” x 28”

April Dean, "We Are Never As Brave", 2013, inkjet print on film, 40” x 28”

“How are you?” No matter how crummy or crisis filled our day has been, most people respond to this ubiquitous question with a cheery: “Fine, thank you.” The advent of Facebook has only upped the positive-thinking ante. Its highlight reel of unending birthdays, holidays and professional accomplishments belies an alarming fact. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says Canadians are among the biggest users of antidepressants in the world. Other studies show the more time people spend on social media, the more their overall life satisfaction declines.

April Dean, a recent MFA grad from NSCAD University in Halifax, addresses these issues head on. Her art cuts through social pretense to the truth: in quiet moments, when phones and social media are turned off, many of us harbour feelings of self-doubt and isolation. This show dares to make such private moments public.

Dean, who works as the executive director of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists in Edmonton, began the Wet T-Shirt prints in 2013. It was a time when she was struggling personally and tired of putting on a cheery face. Rather than hiding behind a mask, she decided to express her thoughts and feelings. “I think that breeds better understanding, compassion and empathy between people,” she says. The resulting prints are like emotional X-rays.  

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April Dean, "We Are Ill Equipped & Unprepared", 2013, inkjet print on film, 40” x 28”

Inspired by poetry, tweets and text messages, Dean turns snippets of language into intensely intimate slogans that are silkscreened onto T-shirts. She soaks each garment in water and arranges it on a light table to be photographed. The final images are delicate and transparent. When suspended, they project shadowy text onto the gallery wall. Viewers can peer through the work’s surface, metaphorically accessing concealed and often shame-filled recesses of the psyche.

While this series addresses human vulnerability from the perspective of the inner self, Dean has also been working on a video to symbolically address the macrocosm: external social, political and environmental forces. This piece will show a row of T-shirts billowing in the wind in a snow-covered field, unprotected and defenseless against the power of nature. 

The video’s title, Blowing in the Wind, refers to the song by Bob Dylan. And, like the lyrics of the famous activist, musician and poet, Dean’s text-based art is also a lyrical manifesto, a one-woman mutiny against the oppressive social pressure of perpetual success and gaiety. 

In this courageous show, the Facebook version of the self mercifully disappears. The doors of the concealed, more real and more vulnerable psyche blow open.