Sid Dickens

Opera

2003 (Spring) - Black and White - T127

Retired December 31, 2004

Spring 2003 brings two collections of Memory Blocks, bursting with colour yet balanced with the elemental integrity of black and white imagery. These two distinct groupings reflect the artist's inner transformations as he integrates the end of one cycle and, the beginning of another. Initiated in his Vancouver studio, Sid designed the Garden of Light Collection; ten images to complement and extend the lyric notes of colour first introduced in 2000. Following this, he conceived and completed the Black and White Collection in the isolated environs of his remote new studio. Leaving behind the often chaotic environment of the city for a carefully chosen solitude, the focus of Dickens' creative energies transformed. Pivotal was his rediscovery of a long-lost personal notebook. This precious find in hand, Sid was immersed in an earlier day of collected images, ideas, fragments of conversations and notes to himself - he reconnected to the early artist and the very origins of his Memory Blocks. Thus became the inspiration for his edgier and more personal Black and White Collection. He describes that "it was like finding a lost manuscript and, in the moment of its possible reburial, bringing it to publication." Within these collections, Sid has also implemented a long held desire to integrate the tile sides into the surface of his pieces. This evolution signifies the artist's continued attention to detail and his desire to involve the viewer in all dimensions of his complex work. In these most mystical of collections, Sid cultivates his alchemic themes, imbuing everything - object, stone, tree and flower - with a human voice and sensibility. They bring alive the memory of an enchanted world of similarities and signs, of resemblances and reflections, allowing us to decipher them. The alchemist of images opens our inner ear to that 'other language'; that language before words. View collection.