CHAPTER III: NOW ENTERING BEYAWNDER

“Take a doodle fer a ride
or find a mystifying monument to ponder.
Step right up, come see fer yerself:
we’re now entering Beyawnder.” – Jiggs

Read more below about Chapter III of the Yawnder series as well as the Within Beyawnder installation. 

And check out Chapter I, Chapter II, and Chapter IV.

Beyawnder is the setting for Chapter III of the Yawnder chronicles. Drawings from this part of the story were first exhibited at Galerie Youn for a solo show titled Now Entering Beyawnder. Here we find Jiggs entering a portal to a place beyond Yawnder. This is a place unlike any other where a doodle can be taken for a ride and concepts become monuments. Some of the fellers who follow Jiggs to Beyawnder join the experimenting while others lose their head. They saw some of the oddest sights, in all manner of colours, as far as the eye could see. If you don’t believe it, then see fer yerself.

As was the case with Chapters I and II in Dart’s book Where Yawns Go: Volume I that present the initial part of the narrative from his Yawnder series, Chapter III will be made up of pieces that were previously exhibited and will include writing from Jiggs in order to tell the story of his adventures to Beyawnder. Where Yawns Go: Volume II is currently in production.

 

WITHIN BEYAWNDER

“Spend any time over Beyawnder and yer bound to see
something weird and new that’s been set free.
What might at first seem like the result of a spasm
is actually a carefully crafted Fathom.” – Jiggs

Read more below about the site-specific installation.

In 2017, Jay Dart created a site-specific experiential exhibition for a solo booth at Art Toronto that he called Within Beyawnder. The drawings that were exhibited expand on the ongoing narrative in his work about a wanderer of a whimsical mindscape known as Yawnder as his alter-ego, Jiggs, continues to experiment in Beyawnder. As Dart continues to draw allegories for themes that straddle imagination and reality, this installation further obfuscates this division as viewers are immersed in his world through this encompassing landscape – a contiguous horizon line is used throughout all of the drawings and, on the wall in between the drawings, Dart has filled in the landscape in order to create a unified space that spans the entire exhibition booth.

“These days there is a lot of concerned dialogue about what’s real, what’s fake and the ramifications of ‘screen time.’ I purport to contribute to this conversation by creating a space that explores how we navigate between or integrate digital, physical and psychological realms. The setting for this experiential drawing exhibition is Beyawnder — a new part of the mindscape where the wanderers ponder and play among a strange assortment of abstractions whilst trying not to think about ‘that’ (you know what ‘that’ is, we all have it). The whole scene is reminiscent of an art fair where inspiration and a sense of wonder are abound for those with an open mind.” – Jay Dart

A selection of drawings from this series were exhibited at the Drawing Now art fair in Paris with Galerie Youn.