Trying to Come Back

Davita Guslits (she/her)

3rd year, Painting and Drawing major

Trying to Come Back

4′ x 3′

acrylic and glitter on canvas

2020

Artist Statement:

Davita Guslits is a Fine Arts and Psychology undergraduate student at Concordia University, and has been practicing visual art for the past 12 years. Her main mediums are painting and film, which sometimes intersect with her other main interest: composing music. Davita is from a settler Ashkenazi Jewish family, living on Dish with One Spoon Treaty territory. Her recent works reflect the growing pains of extracting personal identity from internalized stereotypes, as well as her mounting interest in art therapy.

Description:

Daydreaming while on a Tinder date means you won’t really get to know the other person, and they likely won’t live up to the daydream anyway. This painting comes from a body of work examining personal accountability. Dating apps are a resented part of my life, despite the short term rush of matching with someone- but it doesn’t feel like they’re leaving my life anytime soon. The speed of matching and meeting potential dates belies the significant process of actually getting to know a new person, and the collective deprecation of these blind dates makes it difficult to take them seriously. But on reflecting, every date I daydreamed through meant a human being’s time and dignity being wasted on the other side of the table.