How do you deconstruct a sneeze?
BY Ellen Curtis
April 2017
Newfoundland Quarterly chatted with April White recently to get inside the head of one of St. John’s visual artists.
Your house in three words?
Plants, cats, art.
Earliest memories of art?
Sitting at the table in the kitchen with kids’ acrylic paint and construction paper, and my hands.
What do you wish people knew about you by looking at your art?
That I’m grounded, and in the here and now.
The hardest part of your art career?
The hardest part, I think, is that it’s not a typical job. You can’t just look at past artists and know what they did to “become” an artist professionally. You have to find your own way through the field and everyone does so differently. That is also what makes being an artist so special, that your life plan isn’t clear-cut.
Your favourite project to work on?
I’m pretty excited about the project I’m working on now about sneezing. I’m deconstructing the sneeze and examining what happens to my own face and body while I’m sneezing. I’m trying to stretch out a small moment, one that only takes a second, and examine that. I’m looking at subverting traditional representations of women. Basically, looking at the expected etiquette and appearance, and unpacking that.
What location feeds your creativity?
I find seeing other people make their work does that, so in an art gallery or seeing a great concert. Going to an artist talk, and listening to them talk about what goes into their practice, and seeing all the work they’ve done.
