Ergo Sum: A Crow a Day

On August 1, 2014 Canadian-born artist Karen Bondarchuk set out to mark the passing time that her mother – diagnosed with dementia in 2010 – no longer could. For 365 days, she produced a crow a day on a hand-cut, hand-gessoed panel, remembering her mother as she once was and grieving her loss. The resulting work explores communication and an artist’s relationship to the world; it resonates for its depth, beauty, and elegiac and potent whimsy.

Karen Bondarchuk (b. 1964) is Associate Professor of Art at Western Michigan University. She studied at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, and The Ohio State University, Columbus. This exhibition is organized by the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wasau, Winsconsin.

Featured artwork: Karen Bondarchuk, Crow 24, 2014, mixed media on handmade gessoed panels.

You can view more of Karen’s art here.