Erika DeFreitas
In the two-person exhibition All that is left unsaid/at the very point when words fail us (with Michele Pearson Clarke). February 24 - April 8, 2017, Centre[3] for Print and Media Art, Hamilton, Ontario.
By Tara Bursey
Erika DeFreitas, Sometimes the metonymic object is an absence (in progress). Inkjet digital print, 2014-2017. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo credit: Toni Hafkenscheid
Crochet is like language. As one who crochets, I often find myself falling back on half-double crochet with a fine sock yarn. This approach to crochet suits my personality— it is finicky, focussed, a bit masochistic, and takes determination. As opposed to the structured, unfolding story that a granny square tells, the giggly, drunken hiccup of a bubble stitch, or the curly Victorian prose embedded in a tatted lace doily, my crochet is a nervous internal monologue.
If we consider form as a vessel for cultural or diasporic meaning or ritual, crochet is a world on a string. The work of Erika DeFreitas, in particular her multifaceted piece Sometimes the metonymic object is an absence, is steeped in notions of memory, family, and identity as form, and of form and gesture as language.
Entering the main gallery of Centre[3], one is greeted by a humble wooden chair draped in a warm white afghan with a decorative chevron motif. A yarn ball attached to the afghan represents the unfinished afghan in progress, while another, trailed by a tangle of crimped yarn, hints at the unravelling of the blanket and the rewinding of yarn into a ball at the opposite end. The chair, occupied by the blanket in place of a human body, is lit in a way that is dramatic, honorific, with undertones of pious devotion.
On the wall to the left of this tableau is a photo of the blanket in progress, being made by Erika and her mother. The composition of the photograph has a formality derived from the history of art, the afghan dramatically draping outwards from the seated women, as well as a distinct symmetry familiar from western religious art. This all sits in compelling contrast to the well-worn upholstery of the decades-old family sofa, and the orderly chaos of photos and souvenirs contained on all available surfaces in the otherwise spartan space.
My eyes land on the toys and puzzles on either side of the scene. They are the odd items out. Along with the photos, they read as trivia from the past, while the afghan is a vessel for both the present relationship between mother and daughter and an all-encompassing, collective history. Its blank space allows room for all that mother and daughter share and don’t share, while the ritual and repetition involved in its creation come to the fore— each stitch a whispered word, each chevron a step along the way, each series of stitches a sentence, and each skipped stitch a breath.
Tara Bursey is a Hamilton-based artist, independent curator and arts worker. Formerly a Curatorial Assistant at the Textile Museum of Canada, she coordinates exhibitions and programs at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre, the country’s only labour history museum and multidisciplinary art centre.