En Faisant is part of an on-going body of work in which Katie Belcher draws on her experience plucking feathers from pheasants in rural France. In a dance between remembering and creating, she uses the physical body-memory of the plucking process to carve an image out of charcoal. The work shown comprises two new sets of drawings created in residence at the Lunenburg School of the Arts as well as a wall drawing made on-site. The larger abstract images take on the quality of landscapes replete with a wide range of tone and marks; however, in her more minimalist drawings, she most assertively melds the spirit of the pheasant and the process of mark making, resulting in the bold and confident compositions of Notation. 
Andrew Maize
In stark contrast to Belcher’s gestural charcoal, Andrew Maize exhibits his colourful and psychedelic Marker Drawing Series. These images of morphing inkblots are produced by placing markers on top of a stack of paper to allow the pigment to bleed through the layers. The result is a frame-by-frame illustration of gravity and the physical properties of the ink and paper – thus, a two-dimensional rep-resentation of a three-dimensional process occurring over time.
Both artists use similar conceptual frameworks to generate the imagery on display at Hermes, but where Belcher relies on personal body-memory, Maize removes the body from his drawing completely. Yet their images share an exploration of physicality and fate, be it our relationship to food and death, or the inevitable path of ink as it runs through layers of paper.
Note: Selected works by both artists will be on view at the grand opening of the Lunenburg School of the Arts on May 1.
Hermes: http://www.hermeshfx.com/
Katie Belcher & Andrew Maize continues until May 3.
Daniel Higham works in a butcher shop where he’ll talk to you about art, food, and life. He writes for Visual Arts News, is Akimblog’s Halifax correspondent, and can be followed on Twitter @HighamDaniel.
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Katie Belcher & Andrew Maize at Hermes, Halifax
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