On the surface, Debbie.Lee Miszaniec’s Earthly Delights is the height of temptation – luscious donuts, seductive cupcakes and feasts for the eyes and mind. She spends hours painting the golden flakes on the pastry, or a glistening fatty sausage. Debbie.Lee’s expansive banquet scenes reference historic foods, feasts, figures and artworks.
Stewing within the work deeply questions our contemporary obsession with food, diet culture and body size. Health and wellness ideas are conflated with images of thin and fit bodies. We use virtuous language in refusal, graciously declining the temptations of food.
“There are still health concerns for individuals struggling to balance the health consequences of obesity against the health consequences of long-term weight loss efforts. As someone coping with that legacy, I am challenging myself to talk about it through my work,” Debbie says.
Image credits: Debbie.lee Miszaniec, Debbie.Lee Miszaniec, Power or Glory, 2024, oil and canvas with sculpture; Portrait of the artist, in the style of Titian by Courteney Miszaniec and Logan Miszaniec, 2024.
Debbie.Lee Miszaniec: What You Do To My Body (and Mind)
Saturday, January 13, 2024 – 10:00am to Saturday, March 23, 2024 – 5:00pm
“visions of sugarplums danced in their heads…” Just in time for the post-holiday New Year resolution season, Debbie.lee Miszaniec presents a lush abundance of Dutch baroque-inspired still-life paintings of ‘forbidden foods’ in the Okotoks Art Gallery. The exhibition focuses on the psychological struggle between the body’s needs and the mind’s direction when pursuing weight loss. A soft sculpture, tortured by these sweet sights, sits caught in the struggle between nature and diet culture.
Debbie.lee Miszaniec is an Alberta artist working in Calgary. She holds a BFA (2008) from the Alberta University of the Arts. Her paintings draw from her observations of the human experience, history and society as well as her own experience as a working-class Western female artist.
For the past few months I have been devouring a mountain of books and furiously planning, scheduling and scribbling in preparation for this day! June 1st marks the start of a pretty major new studio undertaking:
Over the next 6 months I will be creating a large scale triptych oil painting inspired by Hieronymous Bosch’s masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1500) For this project I will be expanding upon my still life food paintings, by incorporating them into an encyclopedic larger than life triptych referencing the moralizing religious art of the Northern Renaissance.
The inspiration for this painting follows from my own experience navigating contemporary health and diet culture: I lost over 35% of my body weight to achieve a normal range BMI, then maintained that weight loss for about 2 years before beginning a period of weight cycling. Technically this is still a weight loss success story as current definitions of long term weight loss include maintaining a reduction of 10% or more initial bodyweight a year or more. However, I realized in the past couple years that keeping my weight in the normal BMI range had become a Sisyphean task requiring more and more extreme measures that have been limiting my life as well as causing a variety of physical and psychological side effects not dissimilar to those described in anorexia.
The Earthly Delights series is an exploration of that journey. As the majority of those who successfully lose weight will eventually regain it, I know I am not alone in this experience. Giving this experience a voice through my art is an opportunity to transform personal challenges into an expression and exploration that can help others understand this all to common journey freshly.
In Earthly Delights – Lost In The Garden I will be exploring the lifecycle of influences that continue to complicate our relationship with our bodies and our weight. In our post colonial culture a sense of morality has been applied to our consumption and body size since at least the 4th century BCE when gluttony was listed as one of the seven deadly sins or vices in Christian lore. The prophets of health and diet culture proclaim their one true way to attain good health, longevity, and a good life, but frequently their prescriptions are found later to damage rather than help. Too late the damage is done and the disciple is left to live with the consequence.
I welcome you to come with me on this journey through this project over the next 6 months as I share images, thoughts and process on social media, in my newsletter (Subscribe), Blog, and on my website. Together we go forth!
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
As mentioned in my blog post about my Gallery@501 show Moments & Lifetimes, 11 of the paintings in the show are coming to the Calgary Stampede Western Art Show here in beautiful Calgary AB this summer. All of the paintings in the Western Art Gallery and the Mini Masterpiece Salon are available to purchase, so make sure you save some of the coin in your old time-y coin purse (but maybe pop your plastic into your coin purse instead of coin, they do debit & credit) for the Art Show, which is in the Western Oasis, housed in the BMO centre on the stampede grounds! See you there ‘pardner!’
After The Rain, 42″ x 42″ Acrylic on Canvas, $4450 Debbie.lee Miszaniec
I was pleased to be able to deliver a custom reproduction of my 2005 painting, After The Rain, to the Momentum offices earlier this fall. They purchased the print for their new offices in the Radisson Heights area of Calgary.
This painting in particular was of interest to their staff as the painting depicts an actual place in Penbrooke Meadows, one of the communities near their offices, and a community I was a resident of for 11 years. It depicts the first sunny day after a solid couple weeks of rain, when everything, even abandoned furniture, expired holiday lights and neglected lawns, appear fresh and beautiful as the sun lends it all sparkle.
I have a good history with Momentum; I obtained a lot of my business skills through their small business training, coaching and mentorship. Their support of small business and entrepreneurship, including us scrappy little boot strapping artists, is a hugely valuable service to the community.
Thank you Momentum for your ongoing support of small business and local artists!
Arts Aqui, Marda Loop Calgary: Closing October 15th 2022
It has been a short residency since Arts Aqui asked me if they could carry my art last winter. However the building has been sold to a developer and Arts Aqui will be closing its doors permanently on October 15th of 2022. It is a shame as the owner is passionate about art and artists, however I know she will go on to new and exciting adventures n her own creative practice.
Paintings formerly carried at Arts Aqui
If you are looking for a piece of mine that you saw there you can contact me directly through my website to see if it is still available. If you represent or know a gallery in Calgary that would be a good fit for my art, get in touch!
