By Fateema Sayani
For someone who is accustomed to making films with detailed narratives about female sexuality in Japan, and psycho-thrillers set in bed and breakfasts, Roshell Bissett’s work of drawings are a welcome reprieve from the complex art of filmmaking. No Bodies is a collection of 15 line drawings of male and female nudes with a colour wash showing at Gamma Ray Productions (494 ½ Somerset St. W.) until April 8.
Bissett says her “humble little drawings” concentrate more on the linear form of the human body rather than an individual portrait of the specific model, hence the play on “nobody’s.”
“They’re very free, kind of childlike,” she explains over the phone from her Montreal home. “They’re very simple poses of the human figure, they’re accessible because everyone understands the concept of the human body. I like that about them.”
Bissett’s work fits in with the vision of Gamma Ray. The groovy little one-room gallery is nestled between a few apartments and looks out at a pizza joint — call it Ottawa’s haven from high-art pretentiousness and name dropping. The relaxed, easy-going haunt shows new works every two weeks.
James Brunton, a Gamma Ray co-founder, says he enjoys choosing works that go against the grain of Ottawa’s art scene and provide new artists with an outlet.
“Where else would you go if you were just a starving artist without a portfolio?”
Bissett’s portfolio is hardly empty. Although it’s her first show at Gamma Ray, she’s exhibited her drawings at a group show in Montreal and her film work has won awards at the Toronto Film Festival and the New York Underground Film Festival.
She made the film Cotton Candy while in Japan. It’s a portrait of a Japanese high school girl and her introduction to the world of sex and fetish shops in Tokyo.
“It’s a comment on a phenomenon in Japanese society which concentrates more on the sexuality of teenage girls rather than fully developed-women — I call it the Lolita complex,” she says.
Her other film, Winter Lily, follows the life of a photographer who, while staying at a bed and breakfast, finds himself in all sorts of twists in the suspenseful thriller.
The intense schedule of her film work and the jet set schedule kept Bissett away from her other loves – drawing and painting.
Her show at Gamma Ray marks her return to the media after a nine-year hiatus and a return to a much simpler art form. Her brother Rob Bissett, the other Gamma Ray co-founder, offered to give her a hand with the transition.
“As soon as we saw she was getting back into it, we wanted to help her out,” he says.
Bissett says making the transition from working with moving pictures to still images has given her a chance to appreciate the simple art of creating once again.
“Drawing is so free, it’s just you and the paper. I can do a drawing in one minute. It’s there, I know whether I like it or not and if I don’t like it, I don’t have to show anyone,” she says.
“You’re so much more in control with the process. With film it’s like a life experience, you go in there and you don’t know where it’s going to take you and what the final outcome is going to be.”
Bissett says she appreciates the instant gratification of drawing. And although she will return to filmmaking, her drawings are welcome escapes.
“There’s a freedom in doing them where I don’t need any money and I don’t need anybody to do it with, I can do it and its instant,” she says.
“It’s amazing to go back to something that’s so pure.”