Sweet Dreams (are made of lint)
Tonya Corkey’s Sweet Dreams exhibit uses lint to explore the transformation of memories
From a distance, the moths and bats that decorate the walls of Art Mûr look like soft, grey sculptures. As you get closer, the unconventional mix of materials becomes clear: threads, hair and lint.
On Jan. 11, textile artist Tonya Corkey celebrated the opening of her solo exhibit Sweet Dreams at Art Mûr, a contemporary art gallery in Montreal’s Mile End. Using photography, digital embroidery, lint and other textiles, the artist explores how we reconsider and reshape memories.
“I was using these old found photos from thrift shops and vintage stores,” said Corkey, who has been working with the concept of memory since she began her artistic career in 2008. “They had messages on the backs of them that tied them to somebody; but without that person, their memory is lost.”
The title Sweet Dreams comes from the exhibit’s central piece—a bed with an animation of bats chasing moths projected on the headboard. A cream-coloured quilt is draped over the bed with small, circular stills from the video stitched into the bedding. According to Corkey, the bats represent intrusive thoughts that can often haunt us as we try to fall asleep, while the moths, being more delicate and soft, represent the delicacy of nostalgic memories.
“It's supposed to have some sarcasm to it,” she said. “There are things that keep us up in the night that you spiral about. You can start the night with nice, warm, happy thoughts of the day, but suddenly those thoughts can shift.”
In addition to the Sweet Dreams piece, a series of canvases with needlework moths and digital embroidery adorn the walls. The artist, who completed a residency in Iceland, has a number of works inspired by Icelandic folktales. The piece Two Figures Hauling More Than They Can Carry, an image made of lint and Icelandic wool, is inspired by the Icelandic folktale Reynisdrangar. The legend tells the story of two trolls who got caught in the sun and turned into stone.
“I was thinking of that in terms of memory as well,” Corkey said. “What happens to us when we carry something and can't let go of it? Does that mean we're stuck? Can we move forward?”
For Corkey, lint is a medium that can convey her creative ideas in ways that painting cannot. She majored in drawing and painting at Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) and experimented with Jell-O, Kool-Aid and even pylons before finally landing on lint.
“I really liked the way she was using this material,” said Rhéal Olivier Lanthier, director of Art Mûr. “It’s a non-value material. It’s something we usually just throw away, but she’s transforming it and giving it life. It has a connection to the environment and life itself. That really fascinated me.”
During her thesis year at OCAD, Corkey planned to create a portrait out of wool, but was faced with a challenge when the material wasn’t working the way she wanted it to. While doing laundry one night, she took a closer look at the lint she had thrown out and decided to experiment with it. Lint, she explained, contains a variety of textures, fibres and colours. It may seem grey at first, but upon a closer look, the variations of grey, purples and blues become clear.
“I thought about the material and how it has bits and pieces of us in it. It's like a trace of us from fibres, hair, skin,” Corkey said. “I had a professor in university give me her lint, and it had feathers and sparkly fibres.”
Corkey, who has been collecting lint since 2011, doesn’t mix the fibres to produce specific colours. Instead, she often sources the material from friends and family. She describes the process of creating her art as a mix of needlework and sculpture. Similarly to working with clay, she rolls and squishes the lint into different shapes before flattening it out.
“This work speaks to me,” said Monique Trottier, a textile artist who attended the exhibit. “I work a lot with paper textiles, and I integrate other materials, so I understand what she’s trying to transmit through the lint she collects to create her work–the collection of stories and memories behind the material.”
“For me, the material is really important,” Corkey said. “It helps to carry some of those ideas of memory and nostalgia in addition to the imagery that you're seeing.”
Sweet Dreams will be on display at Art Mûr until March 1, 2025.
