TIT FOR TAT on the Tantramar Marsh, installation detail, wall-text painting, The Ironic Turn exhibition, Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, 2004. Photo: Owens Art Gallery.
TIT FOR TAT on the Tantramar Marsh, installation detail, wall-text painting, The Ironic Turn exhibition, Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, 2004. Photo: Owens Art Gallery.
TIT FOR TAT on the Tantramar Marsh, installation detail, wall-text painting, The Ironic Turn exhibition, Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, 2004. Photo: Owens Art Gallery.
TIT FOR TAT on the Tantramar Marsh, wall-text scale drawing (19" x 62"), plan for wall-text painting in The Ironic Turn exhibition, Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, 2004. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
TIT FOR TAT on the Tantramar Marsh, wall-text scale drawing (19" x 62") detail, plan for wall-text painting in The Ironic Turn exhibition, Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University (Sackville, NB, 2004), in UH-HUH / SORRY exhibition, Wil Aballe, Vancouver, 2025. Photo: Michael Love
TIT FOR TAT ON THE TANTRAMAR MARSH (2004)
The first work of Kennedy's Ethics 101 series and one of his Superstar Shadow wall-text paintings, TIT FOR TAT explores the layers and common implications of this action-for-action expression, addressing the nature of human conduct and the retaliatory implications of our actions.
TIT FOR TAT on the Tantramar Marsh was exhibited in 2004 at the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University (Sackville, New Brunswick) for the travelling group exhibition The Ironic Turn.
"TIT FOR TAT was part of, The Ironic Turn, a travelling group exhibition of Canadian artists organized and circulated by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in collaboration with Kunsthalle Erfurt, Faux Movement and the Owens Art Gallery. I painted TIT FOR TAT in my adapted version of Superstar Shadow type font around the walls of the large gallery in the Owens Art Gallery. The paint colours I selected included the word Marsh. There were six colours in all—Marsh Marigold, March Thistle, (another) March Marigold, Marsh Fern, Marsh Creek and Marsh Rose that I used as the background colour. I built the work recognizing that Lucy Hogg's paintings would be presented on top of it and that there would also be sculptures located in the space. TIT FOR TAT was the first of three works of an open-ended series that I called Ethics 101. Following this work I made You Scratch my Back and I'll Scratch Yours in the Colonial Room (Articule, 2004) and An Eye for an Eye (Museum London, 2005). Others that still may be realized are Quid Pro Quo and Something for Something. The works are all based on familiar terms that describe similar exchanges between people. Conveniently, each fits the space available and it is my choice of colours (through their names) that directs their content. It was interesting to learn recently that TIT FOR TAT was grown in stature in evolutionary game theory to where it now dominates thinking about the evolution of co-operative behaviour in animal and human societies. My long-term friend and colleague at the Owens Art Gallery, Roxie Ibbitson, was responsible for the work's installation."
-Garry Neill Kennedy, Superstar Shadow (1984-2005), pg. 84