You can see Carol Collicutt's work now at NBCCD.

A11

Mireille Eagan

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People either love crows or hate them," says Carol Collicutt. "Very few are indifferent. Whenever I see a crow, I stop and look, studying their body language and unique silhouette." Carol Collicutt's work is currently on display in a solo exhibition titled Wise Guys, located at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design Gallery. The works consist of black and white drawings, coupled with colourful images painted and drawn on mylar. The body of work results from Collicutt's longtime curiosity with the craggy, black bird.

Enlarge Photo

Photo by Carol Collicutt

Artist says people either love or hate crows, but her current exhibit studies them.

"I love the way the wind shuffles their feathers, giving them odd outlines and making them look quite disheveled," says Collicutt. "I also love the old ones who look battered and tired and wary. It's these attributes I set out to capture.

"For years I've been fascinated by corvids," says Collicutt. "My grandfather had a tame raven he could feed by hand, but who remained in the wild, coming and going as he pleased. The sight of it, to a small child as I was at the time, was amazing. It appeared huge to me, and magical, mysterious and fascinating." Collicutt was born and grew up in Halifax. She received her art training at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax where she focused on drawing and painting.

Collicutt has participated in many solo and group exhibitions at such venues as Gallery Connexion, the University Club Gallery at the University of New Brunswick, the City of Saint John Galleries in Saint John, the CBC Georges Goguen Gallery in Moncton, ArtsPlace in Annapolis Royal N.S., and eyelevelgallery in Halifax. Her work was also part of the group exhibition The Exquisite Corpse in 1993, and the Marion McCain Atlantic Art Exhibition in 2007.

Up until the recent flood, when high water levels damaged her studio, Collicutt had maintained a studio at Gallery Connexion for two decades.

During the winter of 2007, Collicutt started drawing and painting crows. She was trying "to capture the essence of their body language and their sharp knowing gaze." The crows act out a variety of positions and emotions. Collicutt has emphasized certain aspects such as feathers and eyes. In some instances, the artist has changed the colour of the bird's feathers to blue or white.

"It was never my intent to reproduce perfect, anatomically correct crows," says Collicutt. "I was interested in their spirit, their obvious intelligence and their characteristic postures. I wasn't interested in their blackness so much as the bright sheen of their feathers-- which in fact have violet tinges and highlights." Her work is obviously rooted in process""the love of materials and the act of creating.

"I enjoy new materials or experimenting with old ones," says Collicutt. "I like to learn how surfaces react and how to control the paint or charcoal or whatever I'm using. Sometimes that isn't as easy as it sounds." She decided to use mylar because she was curious as to what she could do with it.

"It has a seductive, velvety surface and I love the translucency, which looks wonderful in the negative spaces in the paintings," says Collicutt. "However, it's not an easy surface to work with. It marks easily and cracks if bent. Paint reacts differently on it. But the results are worth it, I think. I especially enjoyed making the little charcoal drawings, which I outlined and then smudged with my fingers." Primarily a mixed media artist, she's moving toward photography as a vehicle for her work on memory and identity-- themes that have permeated her work for many years.

"I think the next step for me will be a photography project," says Collicutt. "Because of their blackness, (crows) are difficult to photograph. If the light isn't right all you get is a black silhouette. So the challenge is to get outstanding photographs of them that do them justice. I'm pretty sure I'll be working on that. Where it will lead is anyone's guess."

The show runs until the end of November at The Gallery of the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, in the Historical Garrison District.