Winter sets in. Cold, frozen earth under skies gorged with snow and sleet. The dead season. And yet, underneath, hidden from view silently and persistently life continues; things grow, multiply. Microorganisms breed voraciously in the warm humid caverns of a mouth, the folds of flesh, the moist sweat of palms. Parasitic and persistent and the virus replicates greedily in the shelter of a host cell, hijacking the cell. The cell, overcome with multiplying viruses bursts open spewing new viruses into the body. The new generation mutates, the virus “drifts” into a new shape, ready to adapt, to multiply to colonize and cannibalize. Under cover, life chases life relentlessly, urgently.
Ilze Bebris is a North Vancouver artist, educator and curator working in installation. She has worn many hats: teacher in the public schools, lawyer, education coordinator at a number of public galleries in the Vancouver area and instructor at the University of the Fraser Valley. She is a graduate of SFU, UBC, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and holds an MFA from the University of Victoria.
She is interested in the narratives that shape the culture of contemporary everyday life. Working mainly through a process of bricolage, she works with the vocabulary of every day materials to create sculptural works and installations that explore the tensions around ideas of the natural and the artificial. She has shown both nationally and internationally and is the recipient of several awards.