Opening Reception:
April 5, 6-9 pm
The Bows

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it hides in the light presents a new body of experimental mixed-media works by artist Dion Smith-Dokkie that attend to embodiment, interface, information, and infrastructure.

Inkjet-printed stills taken from video works, satellite images of bodies of water, images of daily life, and select found images are broken down into ‘particles’. Using water, the particles are transferred onto paper, creating a collage. In this process, the images are liquefied and lose their discernibility: they synthesize and coalesce. The resulting compositions are further developed with watercolor, gouache, and ink.

The result is an indistinct, luminous work that straddles the line between non-representation and concrete location, videographic and painterly modes. The formal and conceptual tools utilized—mediation and translation via contact, transfer, diffusion, and mutation—become tactics of deliberately sensual and nebulous erotic self-representation. They extrapolate a diffused and empathic praxis of embodiment, self-location, and co-relation

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Dion Smith-Dokkie (he, they) resides uninvited on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh homelands and territories. He was born in Fort St. John and grew up in the Peace River region of northeast BC and northwest Alberta. Dion locates themselves as a gay, mixed-race European-Indigenous man who lives with mental illness. He is a member of West Moberly First Nations, a Treaty 8 First Nation. They hold a BA in Women’s Studies from the University of Victoria (2015), a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Concordia University (2019), and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of British Columbia (2021).

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it hides in the light is the first solo exhibition I’m having away from home—this makes it precious. I am so deeply grateful to The Bows for this opportunity to present my work for the first time in Mohkinstsis, to enter into regardful and curious dialogue with the practitioners and community here. Thank you. By that token, I am indebted to Molly Jesse-Fujiye Caldwell and Jasmine Hynes, for this gift, for lifting me up. Thank you.

The show began to take definite shape last year during an artist residency at the Banff Centre. That experience was life-changing for two reasons. First, the amazing arts program administration staff and program support/delivery specialists. Second, the cohort of brilliant, kind artists I had the privilege of spending time with, learning from, growing alongside. It is one of the experiences I cherish the most—I hold it so close. Thank you (all).

As always and forever, I want to thank my parents and especially, in this instance, my father, Keith, for ferrying me to and fro across the Rockies. I know it’s such a chore but it is also such dear time I get to have with you. Another one of my treasures. Thank you.

This show comes into being from within multiple crises—near and far—of health, safety, and humanity. For my part—small as it is—I thank the PnP&Me program of Vancouver’s Health Initiative for Men as well as the John Ruedy and Rapid Access Addiction Clinics at St. Paul’s Hospital: I wouldn’t be here without what you’ve given me. Thank you.

I’ve had such trouble setting to words what this show means to me. I hope these thanks start to.

Dion Smith-Dokkie