| Through a Glass Lightly @1313 – Window Box Gallery dirty laundry, the installation, reflects on two of my most difficult experiences with the industrial medical pharmaceutical complex. It is an ambivalent response, as the system that rescued me is the same one that undid me. The psychiatric drugs that I fought against taking to halt my post partum depression induced a psychotic break. My suicide attempt, as a result of this break, gifted me with one functional limb and a wheelchair. I remain medicated with atypical antipsychotics. I have not been able to roll away from them. ‘Increasing concern is being shown about acute and persistent cognitive deficits associated with neuroleptic therapy’ Dr Peter Breggin. |
With thanks and gratitude to Phil Anderson, Pam Patterson and Leena Raudvee. And to all the people who fight for MAD justice everywhere.
Elaine Stewart immigrated to Canada from Scotland at a very early age and has worked with threads and fabrics for much of her life. Her family history is bounded by textiles. When older, she started at the Toronto School of Art and began to incorporate textiles. , threads, and found materials into her practice. She focuses on both movement- and mind-structured-by-disability supports in two- and three-dimensional installations. Elaine appreciates the textures that textiles provide, whether it be rags wrapped in wire, muslin ripped, torn and dyed a multitude of colours, or thick and thin threads; they add an organic, emotional edge to her work. She has participated in Present Tense, Inclusive Arts London, Bridging Forward Accessible Arts Festival, and showed her work online for The Gynocratic Art Gallery. She also participated in Project Creative Users at Artscape Youngplace during Nuit Blanche and Community Creates Change at Wychwood Barns Gallery. Elaine Lives in Toronto.