An Interview with Cheyenne Kean-Lemery

Cheyenne Kean-Lemery is a mixed media artist based in Alberta. Her most recent exhibit at Zyp Art Gallery, Pushing Up Babies, was inspired by the birth of her second child. She uses her work as an emotional time capsule to capture specific moments in time. Unravelling the hidden text of her world, she manifests the raw emotions of life into concentrated snapshots. Cheyenne’s artwork reviews the dichotomy of life and death in the context of parenthood. Her anatomical dissections of the human experience surrounding loss, grief, and fear in Pushing up Babies, are a gripping journey through her experience with childbirth and early parenthood.

Q. When did you start making art?

A. I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember. I suppose you could say I’ve always been labeled as a creative type. It has taken me a long time to call myself an artist, and I remember feeling awkward when other people would refer to me as an artist. I completed a diploma in art and design from Red Deer College years ago, but as a young person starting my career, I had to be realistic about how I was going to pay bills, so I turned my focus on more “practical” pursuits. For well over a decade (maybe two!) I didn’t make much art. In my early 20s I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, so I didn’t feel like I had enough energy to make a living and also make art. 

For a long time, I tried to ignore creative impulses or repress them. I find them very inconvenient! It wasn’t until early 2019 or so I started to become creatively active again. The birth of my second child was a creative catalyst for me. I also wanted my oldest child to have a healthy relationship with creativity and an appreciation of art, I figured the best way to do that was for her to see me making art. While she discovered the joy of making art it helped me rediscover it. She may only be five, but she is the best art teacher I’ve ever had! 

Q. What does your creative process usually look like?

A. Making art feels more like something that is happening to me rather than something I am doing. Driving on an open road, an intense emotion or a particular line in a song can trigger an image in my mind. When that happens, I can see the completed work in the single blink of an eye and then it’s gone. My mind then works to recreate it the same way someone tries to remember a moment of their life, like the way their grandmother’s hair smelled, or the pattern on the linoleum of the house they grew up in.

The best way I can describe my creative process is that it’s like a wave: building momentum, reaching a peak and then crashing and dissolving in the end. I tend to hyper focus when I’m working on something, so things like eating and sleeping are not high priorities. . . . After conceptualizing the art, the actual work feels frenzied. Then it could be weeks or a month before something strikes me again.  

Q. Why do you make art?

A. When someone is looking at my art, I’m trying to tell them a story. In fact, much of my work has a great deal of obscure text in it. It’s like visual whispering. I may be trying to tell the viewer a story I don’t have the words for, or I may be trying to get the viewer to “tell me” their story by triggering something in them. Exchanging stories, encouraging conversation, and evoking emotions are all my reason’s “why”. I’m very interested in the healing potential of making and viewing artwork. 

Q. What impact do you want your art to have?

A. I am interested in the role art can play in the grieving process. Most of my commissions this year have been related to those experiencing variations of loss, this is an area I am keenly interested in. Basically, using art to commemorate or mark major life transitions. Our modern lives are lacking ritual. I’m not specifically referring to religion but ritual in terms of the awareness of and connection between our inner and outer worlds which I feel is vital for emotional and physical wellness. Life moves fast. Rather than have it gone in a blur, stopping to mark moments of our life can be very nourishing. For me art is a way of marking time, moments, and experiences real or perceived. 

I suppose I want my art to have a positive impact in terms of encouraging conversation about difficult topics or supporting healing in some way. Ideally it unites, strengthens, and supports people in a meaningful way, or at the very least evokes emotion outside of our daily routines. Heightened emotional states help remind us that we are alive, and should inspire gratitude for the life we have, in whatever state it’s in.

Q. Is there anything else you want people to know about you?

A. Despite my love of story, I’m actually an introvert and an intensely private person. This has been a hinderance to me creatively in terms of making and sharing art. I am currently far outside my comfort zone, but if my work has an impact on even just one person, it is very worth it!