Sculpture

Knife Collection - 2002 (ongoing collection project: 1995 to present)

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Installation view: "Kelly Mark: Bout Time" @ Wynick/Tuck Gallery. Toronto, ON 2002

Stainless steel knives & stainless steel magnetic knife strips
55" x 113" x 1/2"
Ongoing life long collection project started in 1995. Exhibited differently each time shown.

I have numerous works that have turned into life long accumulative projects, time based yet also dealing with modes of collection, counting, and inane obsessions. This work began in 1995 while I was living in Halifax and working as a waitress. I began by 'collecting'...stealing knives from other restaurants, friend’s apartments, airplanes etc, as long as each knife was unique. Every other year or so I like to show this work in a new format. This current version utilizes wall mounted magnetic knife strips creating a piece which roughly measuring 5’ x 9’. The work tends to mark upon not only the obsessive nature of collecting but also the particular oddities and forms that such collections can take. The innocuous and banal ‘butter’ knife has become my form of participating in this culture while keeping my sense of humour about such things intact.

exhibition history> (in various formats)
1995 Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax NS); 1996 Articule Gallery (Montreal QC); 1996 Dofasco Gallery (Dundas ON), 1996 The Palace at 4 am (London ON); 1998 Ace Art Inc - Site Gallery (Winnipeg MB); 1999 Kate’s Apartment (Toronto ON); 2000 Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver BC); 2000 Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Toronto ON), 2001 Burlington Art Center (Burlington ON); 2001 University of Waterloo (Waterloo ON); 2002 Wynick-Tuck Gallery (Toronto ON); 2002 Museum of New Art (Detroit MI US); 2003 Art Gallery of Windsor (Windsor ON); 2005 Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa ON);