Susan purney mark & Lori Sokoluk

from a distance: works in Correspondence

Susan Purney Mark and Lori Sokoluk are established contemporary artists with creative practices focused on strong organic mark making, showcasing materiality and a sense of symbolic meaning. While Susan approached her work from a textile perspective and Lori from painting, we both incorporate collage, paint/ink and drawn marks in our work and follow a creative process that welcomes shifts in direction and ‘happy accidents’.

During the recent time of social distancing and isolation, we began this series of works in conversation as a way of sharing, extending our creative practice, and building a feeling of connection. Just like written correspondence back and forth, we are sharing deeply of ourselves in this exchange of pieces. The titles of the collaborative and post-collaborative pieces come from possible first words of a written letter. This, however, is a correspondence without words, using a different kind of symbolic language.

This exhibition includes 2 pieces from each artist that were completed prior to the collaboration, approximately a dozen pieces done in collaboration (Susan started some, Lori others, then mailed the pieces to the other to complete), and 4 pieces from each artist that were done individually during or after the collaboration. Can you see elements that each brought to the collaboration? Can you see any influences of the collaboration in the later individual work?

This project enabled us to work together “from a distance” in our small rural communities, Susan in British Columbia and Lori in Alberta. This project has enabled us to find commonality in our visual language despite diverse mediums, and to expand our creative range through sharing our specific art-making techniques.

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