Born in Kelowna, British Columbia, Jason Gowans now lives in Montreal where he is completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography at Concordia University. Inspired by Toronto artist Peter Greyson’s defacement of the Proclamation of the Constitution, Gowans chose to focus his artwork on the red paint stain on the second original copy of the proclamation. In 1983, Greyson entered Ottawa’s National Archives and poured red paint over the proclamation claiming he was disgruntled with the federal government’s decision to allow U.S. missile testing in Canada and wanted to “graphically illustrate to Canadians” the wrongdoing of the government. As Gowans contemplated the stain, he envisioned it as a stencil. Gowans removes the stain from its original context as a mark of vandalism on an important document and aestheticizes the shape of the spill, appropriating it as a symbol of rebelliousness. Rather than an act of defacement serving a specific political purpose, a stencil is designed as a cheap way to politicize a public space. By projecting the stencil of the stain onto a wall, the image is dramatic and appears to carry political weight. However, in reality it fails to do so because the projector can be turned off and thus, the gesture disappears.

Jennifer Patterson