CBC Arts

Her father was an artist too, but they shared something even more than that: the experience of being bipolar.

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Vancouver artist Juli Majer does a lot of things — drawing, ceramics, sculpture, installations, performance, comics and more. Her father was an artist too, and Majer feels that he's part of her and part of her work.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm picking colours through him, and his shapes come up in my drawings a lot."

Majer shared something more than art with him, though.

"He was also bipolar too," she says, and their shared experience became part of a comic she made — at first without her realizing it. "I was subconsciously making this comic. It's about this character who's really obsessed with the sun, and their possession by the sun makes it so they have such intense feelings that it's either completely infatuated or completely hateful and scornful of the sun. It's these very extreme degrees of feeling."

"After I did that, I felt like I was really close to my father. I was talking about those extremes of how he felt."

"I just think his existence is part of my existence. It just makes sense to me."

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About: Welcome to CBC Arts, your home for the most surprising, relevant and provocative stories featuring artists from diverse communities across Canada. Our job is to fill your feed with the disruptors and innovators changing how we see the country through movement, images and sound — and to inspire you to join in too. Show less