Behind Moving Eyelids
Jeneca Klausen & Caitlin Lapeña
May 10-11, 2025 at 13 Cedars

Behind Moving Eyelids features the work of jeweller Jeneca Klausen and visual artist Caitlin Lapeña. Both based near the Bay of Fundy in southern New Brunswick, Klausen and Lapeña have developed an artistic dialogue through past collaborations and mutual interests.

Klausen’s profound connection to the New Brunswick landscape and its natural resources have shaped her work and the philosophy she applies to her designs. The work presented in this exhibition was created through a process of recycling silver from her past projects into abstracted, organic forms, integrated with raw gemstones and vintage found objects.

Lapeña’s works are informed by her interest in fashion history, Jungian psychology, and Canadian women’s poetry. Her drawings, collages, and silkscreens present diaristic narratives through the abstraction of text, clothing, and the feminine form. Like Klausen’s repurposing of material, Lapeña uses found imagery from various sources including blogs and antique fashion magazines to create intersectional feminist commentary.

The title of the exhibition is taken from a line in Gail Bonsall Kaye’s 1973 poem “noon dream”. Gail Bonsall Kaye lived in Saint John, New Brunswick from 1939 until her death in 2011, publishing a single book of poetry entitled Behind Moving Eyelids.

noon dream

you, solitary dreamer
asleep in your grotto
your long golden hair
cascading
over green moss –
of what do you dream?
so deeply wrapped
in summer slumber –
gateway
to that other world.

empty question --
I know I dream
about my dreaming.

outside,
the heavy fronds
of dark green ferns –
still against white sky.

inside,
behind moving eyelids
the red pulse of life –
and infinite imaginings.

-Gail Bonsall Kaye, 1973

Installation photos by Michael Mohan