Meredith Blackmore is primarily a visual artist. She paints portraits and murals, airbrushes t-shirts and makes figurative paintings, often about dance.
Her first arts training, from age 9-13, was at The National Ballet School. She remembers sketching dancers in arabesque on her breaks. After the world of classical dance, she studied Kathak that taught her about storytelling, Salsa that freed her hips(!), and Modern with David Earle who champions roots, wings, and arms that circle the earth.
She studied Fine Arts at The University of Guelph which introduced her to these two words together: Performance Art.
The line between the world of visual arts and of dance is continuously blurring. These worlds have come together for Meredith in live painting at public events, including at a TIFF opening party, Roy Thomson Hall, The Elora Centre for the Arts, and The Museum in Kitchener. She painted the winning portrait of dancer Rex Harrington on Bravo!TV’s Star Portraits. She danced for glass artist Jerre Davidson who produced sculptures based on her computerized movements. Hamilton Supercrawl featured Meredith as a performance artist, dancing on the streets in a cardboard box. And Guelph Short&Sweet, curated by Katie Ewald, has featured her quirky combos of sculpture and movement.
This Guelph Dance residency gives Meredith an opportunity to champion the movement side of this hybrid. She will use the “hinges” of her body to reveal painted images: visual art popping up from the dancer. The theme of Renewal allows her to get imaginative about our human experience in our natural world.
“Are we human or are we dancer?” (The Killers)
February 2022
