Profile: Tonya Corkey

The Medium is the Message

Art has the ability to trigger an assortment of responses—visual cues can be the catalyst for unexpected emotions and reactions. Toronto artist, Tonya Corkey, explores this concept of memories and the emotions that art can be a catalyst for. But rather than focusing on simply the visual, Corkey takes her art to another level, using mediums such as lint to further hone in on the idea of memories being fleeting. Corkey answered some questions for OTMzine on her art, and impermanence of the subject matter.

Meagan Kashty: Why did you decide to pursue art as a career? When did you know it was something you would do full-time, as opposed to just a hobby?

Tonya Corkey: Initially, I decided to pursue art as a career because I knew that I had a gift and wanted to share it with others. My passion has now grown beyond this to wanting to change the way people think and view the world we live in. From the time I was 17, I knew that art would be something I would do full-time versus just a typical hobby. With every chance I got, I took as many art classes as possible. I even resorted to being a peer tutor in order to continue participation in these classes. Now that I am finished my degree at OCAD, I continue to pursue my love of art with the tools and knowledge I have developed over the years.

MK: You say that your current work investigates “an unavoidable aspect of human nature, the desire to seek memories.” What inspired you to explore this? Why do you think it’s human nature to seek memories, and does this inhibit our ability to appreciate the present or look to the future?

TY: My connection to the past is what inspires me to investigate this. Some of my worst memories have come from just after my uncle – who was a dominant father figure to me – passed away after suspicious circumstances. This is a very significant memory in my life, as I continually reflect back on this moment and the four years following his death. The way I am able to experience these memories again is by listening to the music of my adolescence: - punk rock. I believe that it is in human nature to seek memory because we are conscious of our past. This inhibits our ability to appreciate the present because the conscientiousness we have of our past memories is constantly affecting the way we live.

MK: Can you talk a bit about using lint as a medium – why do you think this was the best thing to use? Also, how do you collect so much lint?

TY: I have always been interested in using non-traditional surfaces and mediums to create paintings. Throughout my time at OCAD, I explored mediums and surfaces, such as Jell-O, Kool-Aid, fabrics and pylons to create works. While working on my undergraduate thesis the summer before it began, I was interested in the idea of loss and wanted to use wool, but I could not make sense of wool and my current interests. A quote that continues to inspire me is Marshal McLuhan’s, “the medium is the message.” I choose mediums that conceptually layer my work. I thought that lint was the best material to use because it has human experiences built into it: skin, hair, fiber and debris from our environment and daily activities. The images I use are abandoned photos that carry memories, which have been lost because they are without the people to whom they belong. I then bring them back to life by using a collaboration of different people’s experiences through the use of the lint. The way that I collect my lint is through the help of others. I currently have peers, friends and family collecting lint for me. Therefore, because my source of material is always unknown, the pallet that I use is ever changing.

MK: I read that when you see your pieces up-close and in-person, you’ll notice lint on the floor, which is meant to recall your message about artistic impermanence. Was this intentional, or something that you discovered as you were creating the art and decided to incorporate?

TY: This was in reference to an installation I had on exhibit at XPACE Cultural Centre called “Your Friend, Freddie.”. In this installation I hung my work from the ceiling and piled lint on the floor beneath it. The lint on the floor was intentional and was an element I discovered along the way. In the future I would like to encase my work in shadow box frames with tiny lint debris in the bottom of the frame, as a reminder of our own mortality.

MK: While many of the subjects in “See You In The Future” imitate the static quality of photographs, some pieces, such as “25IAA152” and “A sweet gal in senior math. Remember.” seem to be almost moving – why are these one interpreted differently?

TY: These are my latest works — ones I call “double images.”. At the beginning of “See You In The Future” I only wanted to create marks on the canvas that were necessary, in order to leave blank spaces for the viewer’s mind to fill in, in the same way a photograph would fill in blanks in ones memory. Throughout the time I spent producing this series, I began to think about the distortion of memory, but also of how the photograph distorts memory. What I was attempting to do was meld these ideas to create an image. I thought about how I try to piece together people in my memory and layered the photographed images accordingly.

MK: How has the style and focus of your art changed since beginning at OCAD versus after graduating?

TY: Throughout the majority of my time at OCAD I felt lost as an artist. I felt as though I could replicate images really well, but that was it, which is why I was always practising with other mediums. I felt like no one else was doing it and I had another element to conceptually layer my work with. Since graduating I feel that I have found my niche in the realm of contemporary painting. I believe I will continue attempting to bridge gaps between genres. However, I find it amusing when others have try to fit me into a category because my work tends to speak to both painting and fiber art.

MK: How has living in Toronto influenced your art?

TY: Being able to go out and see a wide range of artists and galleries. I would also have to add that it is amazing to me how accepting people in this city are of artists and their career path.

MK: What do you think is the biggest challenge for a young artist living in Toronto?

TY: The biggest challenge for a young artist living in Toronto is to stay motivated. It is easy to get sidetracked by making money and taking on more and more, especially when you have what feels like a mountain of student debt gaining interest and waiting to be paid off. I try to stay away from this by asking myself, “Am I trying to build a career in retail or a career in art?” For me, when I know what I want I push hard to make it happen. I also live in an apartment full of practising artists, which makes it easier to stay motivated.

MK: What do you draw inspiration from? Are there any people who you know, or other artists, who are particularly inspiring to you?

TY: I draw inspiration from my past as well as other artists, such as Colette Whiten, Vik Muniz and Chuck Close. Whiten, because of the way she creates images through labour intensive processes, like beadwork, and also that she has been successful at bridging the gaps between art and craft. Muniz, for his use of non-traditional mediums and Close, for his monumental portrait size and the way he uses the images as “a carrier for an idea.”

MK: What other messages and mediums do you hope to explore in the future? Will the idea of memories always come into play, do you think?

TY: As far as future mediums go, I feel they are completely unknown because the message is the most important aspect of the work that I am trying to get across. I come up with an idea and find materials that further developed that idea. I cannot say for sure whether or not memory will be part of my future work because my work evolves by working through the previous work and for that reason the future is unknown.