Blog | Francie McGlynn a Canadian artist

Assemblages and Masks

My work explores how our post-modern spirituality intersects with that of our Palaeolithic ancestors. Using found and scavenged objects such as seeds, bone, fur, fungi etc., I build talismans and amulets - objects people who lived 40 000 years ago would have understood as connections to the spirit world.

a female figure, the body made from tree fungus and the face a paper maché mask is mounted on a painted stretched canvas.

Our Lady of All Midwives

A mixed media talisman assemblage. A hornet's nest sits inside dried glazed tree fungus and forms the body of this figure. Her face is a paper mache mask decorated with stones and wolf fur. She has braids and earrings and clay hands and feet. She is mounted on a painted stretched canvas.

The Quantum String Dispenser

My grandparents always had a string dispenser in the kitchen. in the days when tape was either not available or too expensive for poor folks string was king. The dispenser was always a ceramic face and the string was pulled from the mouth. it seems logical to me that the universe must have a quantum string dispenser made from a bird's nest.

mixed media assemblage, birds nest, paper maché mask, stones, fur, fabric remnants, cabochon

The Woman Whose Conscience Followed Her Everywhere

Mixed media bird's nest talisman. The woman's conscience is the face at the end of a very heavy stick. People appear to have a variety of weights when it comes to the human 'conscience' although the decisions we make may be dependent on the amount of empathy we have. Narcissists know what is right and what is wrong but without empathy they don"t care.

2 D Pieces

This series of oil paint stick 2D pieces speaks of finding order in the randomness of life. Now that I am old I watch this process in astonishment. Like life, each of these images starts with a line (event) which winds across the canvas and is still visible in the finished piece. From the line I coax the image from my unconscious to the canvas, much the same way we visualize and then weave the threads of our daily lives into our life tapestry.