Jimmie Kilpatrick is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brandon, Manitoba. He holds a BFA from Brandon University and in 2018 was selected as Manitoba’s winner of the BMO 1st ART! competition for his ceramic performance/installation Quality Control. He has collaborated with Lin Xu (professor of ceramics, Brandon University), Kevin Ei-ichi deForest (painting, Brandon University) and exhibited in New Brunswick, Ontario, and Manitoba. As a musician, Jimmie performs internationally under the stage name Shotgun Jimmie, has released eight critically-acclaimed albums on You’ve Changed Records and was longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize in 2011. His latest album, Transistor Sister II, was released in August.
Website: Shotgun Jimmie
Event (full schedule): Sunday, September 29, 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. – CLOSING ADDRESS, rm. 136, ARTlab
Artist’s Statement
I am interested in the perceived origin of sound. When a dinner plate shatters on a kitchen floor, does the sound originate in the ceramic plate breaking, the tile floor, the resonating individual pieces, or a combination of these events?
For the performance/installation Quality Control, I make 100 porcelain cymbals that are then systematically destroyed. While a performer plays a four-piece drum kit with an improvised score punctuated by literal cymbal crashes, two helpers place new porcelain cymbals on the stand. Each repeated crash results in the destruction of a cymbal and a repeating series of sound events: hit, break, fall. A heaping aftermath of detritus remains in the gallery as a stand-alone installation and evidence.
My artworks combine elements of performance, sculpture, video, installation, and sound art. As a practicing musician, my approach to studying and making art has been continually informed by areas of interdisciplinary overlap, especially the relationship between visual art, music, and sound. I want sound to be perceived as a material thing that can be seen and touched.
Jimmie Kilpatrick, 2019