In Conversation: Ewan and Jessie McNeil

In celebration of all the dads out there, we asked Vancouver artists—and father and daughter—Ewan and Jessie McNeil to share their thoughts on being artists and parents, as well as what it means to them to have a shared passion for the arts.

Both Ewan and Jessie are represented by the Gallery’s Art Rental & Sales Program.

Jessie McNeil (JM): How did you find ways to maintain your practice as an artist and artisan while also being the primary caregiver for most of our lives? While you had to take a break from being an exhibiting artist for over a decade, we regularly got to witness activity in your studio, and, of course, you never stopped designing and building aspects of our family home…

Ewan McNeil (EM): This probably sounds icky and pompous but to look at things with an “artful” eye. Studio downtime was used to conceptualize, putter and read. Also, because the studio is steps away from the house, I could get in there—however briefly—even when you were little. I never felt I was being robbed of studio time.

EM: What inspired you to become an artist?

JM: Growing up with two parents working in the arts, I always felt that our home was a very supportive environment for nurturing creativity. You put a pencil in my hand at only a few weeks old (I have the masterpiece at home to prove it)!

I think having witnessed a re-ignition of your career as a visual artist when I was a teenager put it in my head that I could pursue this path as well. And now, as a parent myself, I look at you and think that you’re living proof that an artist’s identity doesn’t just disappear forever when their babies are born. Career opportunities aren’t as available to us when we’re in the thick of parenting, and it doesn’t help that we live in a culture that doesn’t value caregiving or art-making enough. Despite all that though, you are prolifically working as an artist, AND you’re still a great dad. If growing up with that isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is.

JM: What does it mean to you to share your passion for the arts with me?

EM: It means you know the value of art gallery air conditioning in sweltering European cities.

But looking back at a specific moment in time, we had the two-person show at Amelia Douglas Gallery where we co-produced a very large site-specific painting/collage for the theatre lobby. I was initially concerned working together might be a conflict of aesthetic. We took turns making our marks. Aside from the initial conceptual agreement I don’t believe we ever worked on it at the same time. We took shifts and had no input on what the other was doing. It turned out really well. Not just in the final product but also in the making. It felt effortless and was so pleasurable! I was very lucky to experience that with you.

JM: I was very lucky too. Do you have any advice or words of support for new parents who are also artists?

EM: Not really, but if I must…Your kids are your greatest project. Art will always be there.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Ewan McNeil is a painter and sculptor whose works frequently take the urban landscape as subject. Examining the human relationship to architectural form and the city, McNeil’s unpopulated, black-and-white vistas set an unsettling tone that highlight the tension between people and our built environments. ewanmcneil.com / Instagram: @ewanmcneil

Jessie McNeil’s interdisciplinary practice reflects on themes of place, memory, the quotidian, time and migration. Based on her street photography, McNeil’s meticulous collage work exposes the places where the personal and public, the fragmented and integrated merge, while offering a painterly representation of the light and texture found in our urban environments.

Since the pandemic and the birth of her daughter in 2020, McNeil has been studying the built and invisible boundaries in urban space. With her work most recently, she meditates on how these boundaries may intensify feelings of frustration, isolation and loneliness while caregiving, and how these boundaries are often entirely ignored by children. For McNeil, the medium of collage reflects the transience of her subject matter, for, while our daily ballets in the streets and “living rooms” of the city are often as ubiquitous and consistent as the production and consumption of mass media (printed or digital), they are also precious, fleeting and, perhaps, in many ways, miraculous. These seemingly mundane encounters in public space are captured for a moment longer when frozen into her collages. jessiemcneil.ca / Instagram: @jessieavm