Description
The Wedding Dress / La robe de mariée is a sculpture in the shape of a dress hanging from a hangar. The bodice and back of the dress are made of white paper cast from the artist’s body. The front of the dress is adorned with four bas reliefs of bees in the paper, three miniature porcelain sculptures of bees and six industrial hexagonal pearl buttons. The hexagonal shapes are repeated in the waist with chicken-wire covered in white paper pulp. The skirt of the dress is made of cheese cloth.
Statement
The Wedding Dress / La robe de mariée was made as a result of a dream. In the dream, I discover my mother behind our family home. She was wearing her wedding dress and as I approached her, I saw that the front of her dress was covered with a mass of honeybees. This was the first direct connection I’d had with my mother since her sudden death when I was six. Perplexed by the dream, I did not know how to respond. Much later I dreamt again of her, but only of the dress and this time the dream showed me a way I could make the dress. This work is a result of the insistence of the dreams.
The presence of bees on the dress was very significant to me. Subsequent research into the matriarchal society of bees led me to further investigate women’s histories and mythologies.
Later, responding to a call for the exhibition, Filiations, at Powerhouse (now called La centrale) I remade the dress. A series of photographs were taken by Vivian Gottheim of me wearing the dress. One was selected for that exhibition in Montreal in 1985.
Karen Trask