CLINT WILSON

BIO

Clint Wilson uses photography, video, sculpture, sound and kinetics to construct inter-media environments that reflect upon and embody states of wonder. He received his BFA from the University of Alberta and his MFA from the University of Victoria and has been a practicing visual artist in Edmonton for 15 years.

STATEMENT

“Since I was unable to participate in what was the longest conjunction in this century of the sun, earth and moon, an occurrence that created a total solar eclipse seen from Nepal to the Pacific on July 22, 2009, I took it upon myself to recreate this charged event within the framework of an interior domestic theatre. Using a simple mechanical device working within a domestic mise-enscene (and without risking the possibility of inflicted retinal damage), this celestial occasion that has spawned diametric hysterias, from ecclesiastic bliss to apocalyptic despair, was captured on videotape. As I attempted to trace this event, and locate that point when my filmic sun falls into totality, where the void is surrounded by its corona, I found a quieting absence at the moment of totality. This was not unlike that moment when sleep overcomes the chaos of the phenomenal world. Given the relatively mundane, rational mechanics behind the event, I find its transformative potential remarkable, and how the path from edifice to mirage embodied by the filmic medium itself can duplicate in its own way the illusion of a darkening sky that has been known to bring the silence of birds.”