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| | ARTIST NAME: | Bickel, Barbara | | ACCESSION NUMBER: | 1995.105.001 | | TITLE: | RETURNING HOME | | DATE: | 1995 | | CATEGORY: | Drawing | | MEDIUM: | mixed media
oil, collage
pastel, charcoal | | SUPPORT: | wood | | DIMENSIONS: | Actual: 120.6 x 89.6 cm (47 1/2 x 35 1/4 in.)
Frame: 124.6 x 93.5 x 4.2 cm (49 1/16 x 36 13/16 x 1 5/8 in.) | | COLLECTION: | Alberta Foundation for the Arts |
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| | OTHER HOLDINGS: | Bickel, Barbara | | ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Barbara Bickel is an artist, researcher, academic and educator. Her art and research interests include arts-based inquiry methods, collaboration, socially-engaged art, the erotic body, connective aesthetics, spirituality, feminism, women’s leadership, and restorative and transformative learning. She has co-founded artist-run centres, curated exhibits, hosted screenings, performed in multi-media shows and artist residencies, and published many articles.
Her academic career began with a BA in Sociology and Art History from the University of Alberta in 1986, followed by a BFA in Painting from the University of Calgary (1993). Since 1995 she has explored the female image, and female archetypes and wisdom, through her art. Her first collaborative art project took place in Alberta, alongside jazz singer Cheryl Fisher, for Her Venus Signature (1996-97). This combination of mixed-media paintings and musical compositions, each creation inspiring the other, was held at the Centre Gallery in Calgary, and at the Vanderleelie Gallery, Edmonton.
Bickel completed an art-based Ph.D. in Art Education at UBC in 2008. She has been an Associate Professor of Art Education, and Director of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale since 2013.
In tandem with her academic career, Bickel works with artists from diverse disciplines – dance, theatre, textile art, creative writing, music – as well as with community members of all ages. For Bickel, artist and viewer are co-creators, and art is a performative act. Her performance rituals are collective social events, and are documented on video, allowing for the body to be re-performed digitally. Drawing on theorists such as Lacan, Bickel views art as an experience of the body before language, and a dialogical encounter with the M/Other. Art and performance rituals have been exhibited in Canada and the US since 1991.
Bickel also founded Gestare Art Collective, based on the Gestare Residency Performance ritual held at the Strathcona Art Gallery, Vancouver, in 2011. This is linked with another Bickel practice, that of Nap-Ins, which are held at numerous locations. Rooted in 60s-era Sit-Ins, as well as in ancient mythical, and female, traditions, these group rituals involve coming together to rest, sleep, dream, and stitch the resulting insights onto a Dream Scroll, which is later placed into the landscape.
Bickel’s numerous publications include the co-editorship of Art-Based Practices in Research and Teaching: Honoring Presence (2015). A full listing of her works may be seen at barbarabickel.com and gestareartcollective.com. |
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