On the occasion of its 125th anniversary, Mount Saint Vincent University has acquired an important textile construction by the Nova Scotian artist Frances Dorsey. Dragon’s Teeth (1994) is a pieced, dyed and photo-silkscreened expanse of cloth measuring three by four metres. It incorporates life-sized silhouettes of Allied soldiers with images of screaming children and hand-written extracts from Dorsey’s father’s World War II journals. As a revision of the usual epic memorial, Dragon’s Teeth makes a fitting centre-piece for an exhibition about the imagery of confrontation and armed conflict.
The exhibition in the mezzanine gallery includes two further works: Margaret Clarke’s “Mother Ireland” portrait Mary and Brigid (1917), and Bruce Johnson’s mural-sized photo-mosaic Oka (1992).
