Tobey C. Anderson, KIA_CA_Afghanistan (from The New American Century Project), 2006-2007, painting installation (45 parts) and black-lights. Purchase, Chancellor Richardson Memorial Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Fund, 2008 (51-002)
Exhibitions
Tobey C. Anderson
one image doesn't take the place of the previous one
Davies Foundation Gallery
23 May - 16 August
The overarching title of Tobey C. Anderson’s work since 2004 is derived from the Project for The New American Century (PNAC), a Washington, DC, think tank that authored, in 2000, a blueprint for US world domination. Rendering images of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Anderson’s haunting fluorescent paintings mimic the screen glow of electronic media.
This exhibition presents two major pieces from Anderson’s The New American Century Project that recently entered the Art Centre collection. The Shock and Awe Trilogy juxtaposes images of the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks, a suicide bombing in Jerusalem and the bombing of Baghdad, staging these events as linked effects of equal weight, a standing pattern of violence. KIA_CA_Afghanistan is a wall-sized grid installation of portraits of the fortyfour Canadian soldiers and one diplomat killed in action in the war in Afghanistan by early 2007, when concerns about exit strategies from the Afghan mission entered public debate. The work is a moving reminder of the accumulating toll of the war, and points to government practices of minimizing representation of the war dead and injured. Anderson continues to paint a portrait of every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan.
The artist will be present for the opening reception on Saturday 23 May, 7 to 9 pm. Now based in St. Catharines, Ontario, Tobey C. Anderson was Chair of Fine Arts at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, and a co-founder of Kingston Artists’ Association Incorporated (KAAI), now Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre.