Over & Around The River Streu
by Sean Alistair
May 4 – 25, 2024
In Person Only
Artist Statement:
Over & Around The River Streu tells Sean’s personal narrative about relocating to a foreign country during a pandemic to be with his husband. Each of the works in this show explores Sean’s experiences of starting a life from scratch in Europe. He discusses universal themes such as the struggles and challenges one must face in order to find community and battle loneliness in a new
home. However he also dives into more specific themes surrounding his fear of war caused by his time living in East Germany while military planes flew above him to fortify the border when the Ukrainian war started. The paintings proposed for this show were all created in Germany over the last 3 years and utilize materials he gathered during his stay, such as authentic military uniforms, 100 year old hand woven linens from Dresden and antique fabrics he sourced from the village he lived in.
Artist Bio:
Sean Alistair is a queer self-taught Canadian born artist specializing in hand-embroidery mixed media paintings. After living in Berlin and the Bavarian countryside of Germany with his husband he has recently returned home and relocated to Vancouver. His art is a visual journal where he discusses the intense impact of how seemingly mundane or innocuous experiences can be to someone who is not only queer but also bipolar. Each of Sean’s Mixed Media works are completely sewn and created by hand over hundreds of hours and focus on material exploration, found objects, recycling and reworking old paintings. Due to his mental illness Sean experiences prolonged periods of mania which he has learned to utilize as a way to keep his concentration in order to finish his works. What is most important to him is that his works live and change with the light, angle or distance they are viewed at.
Find Sean Online:
Instagram: @sean.alistair
Website: www.seanalistair.ca