Daisie Hoitsma
Installation View.
DAISIE HOITSMA’s work focuses on the varying experience of time. Often referencing the landscape of a new home, or actions from a daily routine, Hoitsma explores and marks psychological and physical shifts. Most recently her work relates to her experiences as a mother, and the companionship she shares with her young son. Hoitsma holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Ohio University, and a BFA from the University of Texas at Tyler. Her work has been
included in exhibitions at Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), Morehead State University (Morehead, KY), Gadsden Museum of Art (Gadsden, AL), Ground Floor Contemporary (Birmingham, AL), Attleboro Arts Museum (Attleboro, MA), Visual Arts Center (Huntington, WV), and the Maria V. Howard Arts Center (NC) among others. She has taught at the University of Alabama and the University of Montevallo.
“The period of anticipation before my son’s birth seemed to collapse time- seemed to condense the space between birth and death. However, since his birth, time seems to have expanded and moments have become magnified.
These drawings prioritize action in the same way that interactions with my son, who is still non-verbal, rely on physical movements and responses. Referencing the primal urge of childhood to draw on walls and tables, these drawings on panel show the surviving marks, the traces, of this past year which we have spent as constant companions.
Referencing my height and reach, the drawings become receptive partners in a dance. Hung to mirror my reach, the works emphasize the involvement with the body and our present space, rather than an illusionistic one.
In hard rock, I repeat the determined rock and sway of my body as I try to soothe my son to sleep. These marks blur with soft washes of ink, suggestive not of a void, but rather a field of possibilities, like those that flicker behind closed eyelids.
lineup features profiles of toys and objects piled on top of each other, outlines blurring as the function and character of each overlap and merge in the service of play. Some shapes repeat with consistency, reflecting the back and forth exchange as baby delights in the tossing and returning of toys. The magnified profiles of these typically diminutive objects assert their importance.
The primary experiences of the everyday have become sacred, intense. They occupy our time and our bodies.”