When I think of rhododendrons, I think about transition and the melancholy that follows the exhilaration of change. Their flowers have a delicate pink and blue-violet tone that is so ethereal that it verges on the ghostly – soft apparitions that hover silently over soft, misty fields in my imagination. When I first moved to Vancouver from the prairies, there was a small pink rhodo growing in the muddy front lawn in front of the big house where I’d found a room to live. I’d watch the rain collect on its petals from my window as I tried not to feel homesick while speaking on the phone with my friends and family back home. It was beautiful and lonely.
Years later I discovered that Rhodos are a common sight in cemeteries where they generally seem to stand solo over a granite headstone. Over the course of a multi-year research project, I documented graveyards all over the world and I probably photographed at least one rhodo in everyone. This winter, at the height of the third wave I found myself looking through the images of these flowers as I dreamed of a time when I could fully experience the world again. The works in this exhibition speak to the sense of transition, dissolution, and emergence that I have felt since the pandemic began.
Mark Dudiak
