EDMONTON JOURNAL:
THE VISUAL ARTS

FRIDAY AUG 22, 2003

When Tessa Nunn says her art was partially inspired by the destruction of New York's World Trade Center, she's not speaking metaphorically.

On Sept. 11,2001, the Edmonton-based artist was attending art school in the Big Apple and was only a few blocks from Ground Zero when she watched the first of the two planes hit one of the towers. " was running for my life along with thousands of others when the towers fell, "Nunn says of the highly traumatic event which helped fuel her autobiographically-based project called The Bginning Process.
"That event really underlined what was real and what was not real, and what it means to be human," says the 33-year old figure painter, who refers to her works as a series of visual poems, "painting stelling a story".
Working her earlier training as an anthropologist into her project, Nunn decided to produce a highly layered series of postmodern self-pornaits that would explore her fascination with the universal search for spiritual meaning.
Fascinated with the tension between the physical and the spiritual, another aspect of the project is the artist's decision to deconstruct herself as a sensual entity. "There is great harm caused when we deny the sensual and the sexual. There needs to be a union of these polarities, a merger of the two."
A great believer in meditation, Nunn also wants to highlight the meditative moment in the show, creating a special opening night "happening": A one-time event complete with incense, music and a black light showing of a specially constructed seriesof extra-layered paintings.
"I want the viewer to have a more intuitive experience with the show and recreate a part of the spiritual journey I undertook. For me as an artist, it's very important to really be here in the moment."

Just asTessa Nunn's art rises up from memories and profound spiritual underpinnings, Erika James's Flotilla also hails from great depths.

Microscopic art
James's strangely shaped sculptural objects are an offshool of her scuba diving and fascination with the microscopicworld -external inspirations filtered through her properties work in the movies.
"The thinking behind Flotilla was spurred by my interest in environments, and my desire to create a landscape that wasn't typica or contained by landlocked forms: says the Toronto-based artist, whose 12.piece instalation is currently on display at the Harcourt House Gallery.
"These objects are cast from polyurethane resins and are loosely translated from under- water life ive seen as a diver, plus my interest in rnicroscopic organisms like bacteria and viruses."
Parts of the process used in casting the large (four.by.three.by four feet) intemally lit pieces was picked up from her day job as a movie prop maker.
James has built set pieces for movies like X-Men and the up- coming Shattered Ciry: The Haliax explosion, a CBC docudrama about the deadly 1917 blast in Halifax harbour. ;
"Im taking a big jump With this project by bringing in sound and lighting components, but want to totaIIy absorb you into this other world. "The pieces are meant to put )UU off-guard and rnakeyoufeeJ differently towards landscape," she says. "I'm creating an aggressive flotilla or convoyy and underlining the whole idea of how we've seemingly been entirely on the offence or defence since 9/11 when the whole world went up in arms."