Queensware & Jasperware by Alexia McKindsey

Artist’s Statement:

Alexia McKindsey’s practice derives from the spaces she’s lived and grown up in; spaces rich in familial narrative, heritage, and history. She is interested in the way our homes reflect the collective identity and mythologies spanning the generations of a family. Pulling from the physical facades, archives, and relics found in these spaces, she maps out the physical progression of time and tradition that have passed through these dwellings. Contrasting and combining these elements allow for nonlinear and cyclical representations of memory, space, and experience spanning multiple eras and members of a family. These are replicas of vintage Wedgwood objects I inherited from my paternal grandfather’s collection. The paper used to form these pieces is handmade from my old baby sheets passed down to me from his wife, my paternal grandmother. These objects serve as a means to archive and to transform the original objects into a form more closely representative of their heritage and value. My intention in this development was to preserve the collective memory and tradition of these objects, as well as to commemorate the legacies of these figures in my life. I see the labour of processing and transforming the baby sheets into paper pulp as reinforcing the value, care and adoration my grandmother associated with these fabrics. The act of quilling is significant of the diligence, attention and preciousness my grandfather projected upon the myriad of objects he took to collecting.

About the Artist:

Alexia McKindsey is a Montreal-based artist born in 1996 whose work explores the potential of domestic life and its artifacts. McKindsey graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University (Montreal, QC) in 2020, and her work has been exhibited in several exhibitions and resides in collections across Montreal and Canada. She participated in the Art Souterrain Festival (Montreal, QC) in 2017, ARTCH (Montreal, QC) in 2019 and presented her first solo exhibition And the Mourning Dove Keeps Cooing at AVE (Montreal, QC) in 2020. She is currently represented by Jano Lapin Gallery (Montreal, QC).