In Response invites artists from CAG’s past, present and forthcoming programming to reflect on our current moment. Each week, an artist shares their observations on how the circumstances of a global pandemic are revealing themselves in their life and work. This week's response, Quiet Pandemonium, from Lyse Lemieux is below.
pandemonium pan•de•mo•ni•um (ˌpæn dəˈmoʊ ni əm)
1. wild uproar or disorder; tumult
2. a place or scene of turmoil or utter chaos
3. the abode of all the demons
4. hell
5. a state of noisy, confused activity
Christmas morning at our house is always marked by pandemonium
Synonyms for pandemonium
ado, alarums and excursions, ballyhoo, blather, bluster, bobbery, bother, bustle, clatter, clutter [chiefly dialect], coil, commotion, corroboree [Australian], disturbance, foofaraw, fun, furor, fuss, helter-skelter, hoopla, hubble-bubble, hubbub, hullabaloo, hurly, hurly-burly, hurricane, hurry, hurry-scurry, kerfuffle [chiefly British], moil, pother, row, ruckus, ruction, rumpus, shindy, splore [Scottish], squall, stir, storm, tumult, turmoil, uproar, welter, whirl, williwaw.
Antonyms for pandemonium
bills, elysian fields, Elysium, empyrean, heaven, paradise, sky, silence, peace, calm
Quiet Pandemonium 1 (2020), Ink on paper, 14 x 20”
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Quiet Pandemonium 16 (2020), Ink on paper, 14 x 20”
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Quiet Pandemonium 12 (2020), Ink on paper, 10 x 14”
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Quiet Pandemonium 4 (2020), Ink on paper, 12 x 16”
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Quiet Pandemonium 14 (2020), Ink on paper, 10 x 14”
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Quiet Pandemonium 26 (2020), Ink on paper, 20 x 28”
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I was born in 1956, eleven years after World War Two and growing up I was convinced there would, in my lifetime, be a Third World War. The books I read, the movies I watched too often were about war. Like many of my generation I never imagined the enemy would be this. A virus. Because of the privilege I was born into it is unlikely I will live the levels of despair or pain or even isolation that many less privileged than I will have to go through in the time of COVID-19. I will, however, like everyone else, see how a healthcare issue shuttered the whole world and arrested and changed our way of living with and around each other.
The drawings I have made while away from my daily studio work environment since the beginning of the pandemic are for the most part about hands; disconnected hands. Hands that sweat, hands that tear. Hands that no longer recognize their own bodies. Enraged hands. Burning hands. Contagious hands. Hands reaching, outlying and broken. Anxious hands that fear each other. Hands that fear the quiet pandemonium.
-Lyse Lemieux
Lyse Lemieux has exhibited nationally and internationally for over 40 years. She has created large scale indoor and outdoor installations for the Contemporary Art Gallery, the Richmond Art Gallery and the Toronto Art Fair. Upcoming exhibitions include an exhibition of her extensive drawing practice at the Burnaby Art Gallery in 2021. Based in Vancouver, Lemieux has completed one public art project which awaits installation in 2020 and another scheduled for completion in 2021. Lyse Lemieux is the 2017 recipient of the VIVA Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Visual Arts awarded annually by the Doris and Jack Shadbolt Foundation.
Lyse Lemieux’s solo exhibition FULL FRONTAL was on view at CAG in 2017-18.