Suzanne Bessette

Codes: Practical and Poetic
Two Rivers Gallery, Prince George, BC
Curator: George Harris, 2003

Martin Batchelor Gallery, Victoria, BC, 1999

code n 4: a system of letters or symbols used (as in secret communication or in a computing machine) with special meanings.

This series is a visual exploration of identity, using codes, both practical and poetic. Organic subjects are layered with universal pricing codes, text, genetic codes and poetic I Ching symbols.  The codes become an abstract element in the work as well as imparting, titles, meaning and identifying information.

Various I Ching symbols are used for their meaning, i.e., CH’IEN, Heaven, the symbol of firmness, FU, Returning, the symbol of reversal, SHENG, Rising and advancing the symbol for pushing upwards and TUI, Joy, lake, the symbol of pleasure.

Exploring ancient I Ching symbols somehow led me to modern bar codes and later to genetic codes.  I was curious how UPC’s were selected and came across an inventory clerk at a local grocery store. I introduced myself as an artist and explained my interest in the codes as a symbol for the plant/object and my desire to superimpose the codes over the painted image- he took several steps back and asked, “are you from Saltspring?” and warned me not to use the bar code for Kleenex (we were standing in front of paper products) as it was the property of the Kleenex people—OK! Following this experience I just made up my own versions of bar codes.

Words embedded and painted on some paintings echo the practice and poetry of hatha yoga where a teacher might suggest students “pause” or “begin to notice”, essentially encouraging an awareness and union of mind and body. Painted versions of DNA bands and genetic fingerprints are codes I chose that speak to the origin and essence of our human identity.

I have enjoyed the notion of shaking up these “codes of identity” in my paintings.  In this series, I have worked to create my own symbolic codes as a painter while paying homage to the poetry of nature and the meaningful or not so meaningful ordering of coded information.