Christine Meuris

During the pandemic year while things felt simultaneously dangerous and vague, and social systems revealed themselves to be more fragile than previously imaginable, I began exposing more and more of the transparent scrim that I usually use to reenforce sewn paper.

These semi-transparent works explore the idea of casting off the self-protection of ignorance, using the metaphor of the “Veil of Illusion,” the veil between the world of the living and the dead.  The inquiry behind these works is about who is protected by the veil – by the not knowing – and who suffers.  What is the proper role of illusion?  By creating a “cloak” that cannot actually cloak, and a “veil” that cannot conceal, I am thinking about the ways in which the pandemic year has laid bare the dishonesty of our national founding myths, the danger of unfettered expansion, and the deep inequality of risk and death.  I used the alchemical symbol for the elements (the triangle) to create pattern because I believe that a return to a deeper and more respectful relationship with nature is a key part of the way forward. 

This work is a fervent prayer that, having seen how truly thin the veil between life and death is, there will be no going “back to normal” and that going forward truthfully without obfuscation can be beautiful.