>> Nam: If you had to name a type of art that anyone and everyone can engage with it
might be comics and cartoons if you want to speak to one of the best and busiest practitioners
you could go down to OCAD at the art gallery of Ontario.
Her name is Fiona Smyth.
Whose work is on display all summer at the AGO among other places.
The most recent book she illustrated for those going through puberty, "You know, Sex"
got rave reviews in the New York times.
We're pleased to welcome Fiona Smyth to our studio.
It's so nice to see people in person.
I am so excited to see you.
>> Fiona: I'm so excited to meet you, too!
>> Nam: The exhibition is currently on display at the art gallery of Ontario.
You did the main illustration for the show.
A large-scale, detailed COLLAGE titled "I am here."
Can you walk us through the piece?
>> Fiona: It's supposed to be a celebration of the show and the vibe of the show.
So the show's all about documentation.
And kind of the history of self-documentation.
So there's a time line that shows within the show that I created to -- that goes back to
cave paintings all the way up to TIK-TOK.
But for the cover of the catalogue and what is within the show, as a mural, it's a mix of
pieces that are in the show.
And then things that I picked off the Internet and things related to Toronto.
And some things like my 102-year-old grandmother is on the back cover within the mural.
>> Nam: That's lovely.
You mentioned -- if you look at that piece you see some of the events that we've gone through
over the past two years.
I see a black lives matter, there are front line workers, celebrity.
During the past two years of the pandemic, how does that impact the art and you making art?
>> Fiona: I was mostly working on -- well, this cover and the work for the kids book, "You
know, Sex."
And then my personal work.
So I mean those had elements of pandemic in them.
Maybe more so the "I am here" the less so "You know, Sex."
But my personal work was I do this weekly drawing for a blog.
And it works kind of like a journal.
And over the pandemic like starting on the first day of lock down, I've done this
repeated motif of the sleeping woman over a metaphor of a bed of nails.
And so, yeah, it's -- that's very pandemic-y.
It's very angst-ridden kind of image.
Sometimes it's play but a lot of the times it's a little down beat and --
>> Nam: It's stuff that makes you think, right?
>> Fiona: Yeah, I guess in the last year because it's a weekly piece of art it's been in a room
you can see defined walls and a window which feels very much pandemic because she's kind of
trapped within this room and it's morphing because I do them weekly and eventually I'll drop
that as a theme.
>> Nam: It's really interesting.
Because at the beginning of the pandemic we all thought it would be here for just a few weeks.
But it's fascinating the things we documented from the signs, on the road, of the train, of that
time.
I kind of just want to for get about it but remember all those things that we went through.
>> Fiona: Yeah, it doesn't feel that we're ready or media's ready to reflect.
Because we're not quite out of it yet.
And I guess art is one way of doing this.
Let's talk about the show.
So illustrating a show like this requires not only your creativity but also
collaboration with other artists.
How is your approach?
What was your approach?
>> Fiona: Well, it was a true collaboration with the curators of the show.
So initially when Jim and his assistant Robin reached out to me, they had an idea of how they
wanted to approach the cover and what would become a mural within the show.
>> Nam: And one of the main inspirations was doodle art.
Something from the 70s something that I grew up with and that Jim had grown up
request and which you can kind of see the evolution of in today's adult colouring books.
So, yeah, that was the visual style of it was kind of echoing that and kind of the maximalist
approach of imagery and, yeah, it echos my earlier work and ZEMES.
And, yeah, it's supposed to be fun and engaging and also a kind of a very today digital
instagrammable moment because you request take pictures in front of it and engage with T
and there are life-size elements but beyond life size.
>> Nam: When you said ZEME, the first thing that came 00 my mind was ZASSY.
Remember that?
>> Fiona: Yeah!
>> Nam: You also have a comic time line that documents key moments in history in which key
moments in technology emerge.
What is the inspiration behind this piece?
>> Fiona: That had a very concrete outline from the curators of having key moments.
There were a few iterations of it.
Because where there were so many.
I think even now there are maybe 52 or 53.
So they were taking south some that were less important and putting in ones that were more
important.
So I had to figure out how to juggle that and make it engaging -- visually engaging.
But it's still a little bit chaotic.
And so I brought in my cartooning skills to deal with that.
So it kind of snakes around and through and you can see that in the catalogue but also within
the larger show.
>> Nam: I wanted to read a passage found in the description of the exhibition.
It's described this way.
Homes can be real concrete places but also symbolic vessels that evoke memories,
relationships and rituals.
It can illustrate strange feels of guilt, happiness sadness and fear.
How do you interpret home within your arts?
>> Fiona: Within the piece for "I am here," I think the feeling of home was being in Toronto.
And having that connection to folks in Toronto and just, like, favourite art pieces that were
in the actual "I am here" show.
But, you know, that I might have been fond of before the show.
And then that home thing relates to cheese, the one I was talking about with the sleeping woman.
Especially the one that is have a definitive room.
And how during the pandemic home has been a comfort.
It's safety, sanctuary but it's also a prison.
That we want to escape at this point.
That we don't -- we want to go out -- well, some of us want to go out and enjoy the world.
But, yeah, and I'm showing those pieces right now at 50 Gladstone avenue's saloon.
So you can see these once that I am talking about with the room.
Yeah, I think the pandemic really made us think about what home is.
We also saw a lot of people end up losing their home and create new homes in parks.
And then kind of we had to kind of have this conversation about who public spaces belong to.
>> Fiona: Yeah.
>> Nam: When you try to convey those messages in art, what is it that you are trying to say?
>> Fiona: Well, I think with the mural I was showing the optimism that's happening around these
issues.
And the question of where does funding go, does it go to resourcing or for people who
needs homes or policing?
We know how it's skewed and it's unfortunate but worthy of fighting worth.
More holistic and more, you know, not prioritizing, you know?
So within my work, I guess especially with the kids' books with the series of kids books
with sex educator Cory Silverburg, social justice is part of the art.
Part of our mandate of creating the work.
So that's, you know, becomes part of my art.
And then through my personal work like more close to the drawings for the blog, you know,
it's about feminism.
But feminism which is a tricky word -- and I understand why it's difficult for some folks --
there have been a few versions of feminism over the years.
And personally I think a feminist is a true feminist is about fighting for human rights.
And.
>> Nam: It's interesting that you brought up the word "feminism" because it's one of
those words that can be very politicized.
You identify as a feminist painter, illustrator and cartoonist.
Why is that important?
>> Fiona: I think it's important to embrace the word and de-stigmatize it and to show
what it means through my art which is about empowering women and women-identified folks.
>> Nam: You occupy a space where there aren't many women.
And the book that you were talking about, "You know, Sex" -- because I think art for
a long time had kind of maybe some goods don't belong in the art world or some people might
feel as if that's not -- I don't belong in that world, that world's not for me.
You might hear people in the art world saying that person doesn't belong in the art world.
Have art galleries always been a welcoming space for cartoons and comics?
>> Fiona: No.
There's been this big divide of high brow and low brow which has been blurred a lot over more
recent years.
And, I mean, every few months it feels like there's an article about how comics aren't just for
kids any more.
And there's -- yeah, there's been head way in like crossing that divide of what is art and
who are artists.
The same with cartoonists.
So going back to the history of cartooning in Toronto, what it looked like when I was an
emerging cartoonist/artist to do that today is completely different.
>> Nam: How has it changed?
Because you've been in this industry dust try since the late 1980s.
How has it changed?
>> Fiona: It's changed by who's making the comics and whose stories are being told.
Back then it was a very white boy kind of scene.
There were very few women artists.
There were some.
And even like black artists, BIPOC, artists, queer artists.
There were less.
It isn't to say there weren't folks making the work but the ones being noted or within the
scene, media might have been more overlooked.
And today that's completely changed.
And you can see it from going to the Toronto comics art festival, TCAF and seeing the cartoonists
from around the world and publishers from around the world who are celebrated there.
And, yeah, it's exciting times for comics.
>> Fiona: It is.
You mentioned -- like right now, TIK-TOK, social media, it feels as if it's kind of democratized
the art world, challenged it and pushed it.
And we're having these conversations about what is art, who gets to decide what is art.
When you look back when you were doing this and you were one of very few "other," how did you
manage to take up space back then?
>> Fiona: My work was very, very sexy.
And very loud, very in your face.
I was doing murals.
That's what I was recognized for as I left OCAD or OCA at the time.
And so I took up space by being super prolific and getting my work out there and painting in
clubs.
You can still see vestiges of that in, like, the dance caves upstairs at the palace and the
corner signage of sneaky "D"s which looks terrible now but was fluorescent at one point.
I was making this very sexual work, you know, from the perspective of a young woman
artist.
And being criticized for being misogynist.
It's like what?
>> Nam: How did you receive that?
>> Fiona: A few times along the way because I was doing images of sexualized women.
And it didn't stop me.
And, also, doing a lot of stuff that critiqued the catholic church was a way of exorcizing
it because I was raised catholic.
So I was doing like these themes on the cross.
Controversial kind of imagery.
>> Nam: Imagine if you did that now.
>> Fiona: Yeah.
>> Nam: It probably wouldn't be perceived the same way, right?
>> Fiona: Yeah, but the church needs to be so criticized and maybe it would be more timely
now.
>> Nam: We see what land to SINEAD O'Connor.
>> Fiona: Yeah.
>> Nam: You were inducted to Doug Wright's giants of the north hall of fame campaign in
2015.
What did that recognition mean to you?
>> Fiona: I was honoured to be inducted alongside Inuit artist ILUQTU and it meant recognition
of what I have done over these many years.
Because for a time I felt like maybe I left comics behind and pursued art.
I mean they were happening at the same time.
And my personal art is very graphic and cartoony.
But to be celebrated by my peers, it was a big moment.
For sure.
>> Nam: We talked a bit about "chief."
That's online at 50 Gladstone avenue saloon in Toronto.
Can you talk us through that piece?
>> Fiona: Yeah, this is that sleeping woman that I referred to who I call the SOMNAMBULIST.
Yeah, in recent cheeses, she's within this room.
And I keep repeating the room.
But, you know, changing elements within it.
So there's this transformed weird body.
And elements within the room that are anthropomorphized.
These are images I have been doing since the mid-80s and continue to do.
>> Nam: You mentioned "You know, Sex" which I have in my hand right now.
This is the third, right?
>> Fiona: Yes.
>> Nam: This is speaking -- because when I saw this I got really excited because it's
speaking my son's language, the age group, with the graphic novel.
How do you hope kids, by speaking in their language what do you hope kids get out not
just of the information in the art itself?
>> Fiona: I hope that they find themselves.
I mean that's something that me and Cory try very hard to make the work engaging and to include
everybody.
Sometimes we'll make mistakes and people will tell us and hopefully we'll improve on the
next book.
But it's -- I mean this book isn't created just by us.
It's created by, you know, families, kids, doctors, therapists, like an extensive
activists, an extensive bunch of people.
So I hope that kids find it empowering.
That they find that their thoughts are important and that they have the answers themselves
that sometimes -- like, we're not giving all the answers in this book.
We pose questions for kids to, you know, think about their own answers and how they are valued.
And that it's fun to read.
There are some more difficult parts in the book.
But it opens a conversation.
And that's what all three books are about: Opening a conversation to what a child's
story is and what their opinions are.
And their thoughts are.
>> Nam: Really nice to see you Fiona.
And congratulations on all the work and exhibits you are doing.
Really nice to have you here tonight.
>> Fiona: Thank you so much.
>> Nam: Appreciate it.