AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2005), atrium view, wall-text painting and rug installation, semi-permanent installation, Museum London, Ontario, 2005. Photo: Museum London.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2005), atrium view, wall-text painting and rug installation, semi-permanent installation, Museum London, Ontario, 2005. Photo: Museum London.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen print (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view, The Apartment, Vancouver, 2014. Photo: The Apartment.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen prints (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view from Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi …, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada, 2018. Photo: Don Hall, courtesy of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen print (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view from Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi …, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada, 2018. Photo: Don Hall, courtesy of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen print (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view from Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi …, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada, 2018. Photo: Don Hall, courtesy of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen print (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view from Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi …, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada, 2018. Photo: Don Hall, courtesy of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen print (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view from Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi …, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada, 2018. Photo: Don Hall, courtesy of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2013), installation detail, screen print (in collaboration with Malaspina Printmakers), exhibition view from Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi …, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada, 2018. Photo: Don Hall, courtesy of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE (2005)
AN EYE FOR AN EYE was first exhibited at Museum London (Ontario) as a large scale wall-text painting and carpet installation in 2005. The colour palette for the painting matches the sixty IKEA "Ringum" carpets peppering the floor of the gallery.
In 2013, Garry collaborated on a series of AN EYE FOR AN EYE screen prints with Malaspina Printmakers (Vancouver), exhibited in Cloudy Moment in American History at The Apartment (Vancouver, 2014), and as part of Garry Neill Kennedy: Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi … at the Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina, 2018). The colours for this print series, orange, black, blue, red, and yellow, come from Kennedy's wall-text painting, THE COLOURS OF CITIZEN ARAR, first presented at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2007). Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was held prisoner and tortured in Syria 2002-2003 happened to name these colours in telling his story online: orange, the colour of his jumpsuit; black, the cable he was beaten with; blue, red and yellow, the colours of his torture-related bruising.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE is part of Kennedy's Ethics 101 series where he uses phrases which allude to relationships of exchange, compromise and reciprocity while exploring how power is navigated between parties. These relationships further nod to the power dynamics present in Museum spaces (artist and curator, artist and viewer, institution and the visiting public). Other works in this series include TIT FOR TAT ON THE TANTRAMAR MARSH (Owens Art Gallery, 2004), YOU SCRATCH MY BACK AND I'LL SCRATCH YOURS IN THE COLONIAL ROOM (Articule, 2004), and QUID PRO QUO (Diaz Contemporary, 2012; AHVA Gallery, UBC; 2016; MacKenzie Art Gallery, 2018).
Here, Kennedy speaks to the initial Museum London installation:
"Brain Meehan, director, Museum London, invited me to do a wall painting in the museum's centre gallery using the three large walls designed for this purpose. The work was to be installed for a set time period of about a year and would be replaced by a project proposed by another artist.
My proposal was to paint the text An Eye for an Eye using my variation of the font Superstar Shadow...Scotty Hamer, Peter Hillborg and Cam Fisher were the installation staff who assisted me with the painting. When the work was concluded I signed and numbered each carpet as an edition of sixty and they were put on sale in the gallery gift shop..."
- Garry Neill Kennedy, Superstar Shadow (1984-2005), pg.116