Fundraiser
A photograph from my series I too question the flowers. will be in the live auction of this year's AIDS Committee of Toronto fundraiser, SNAP! This fundraiser will be held on March 30th, 2017. For further information about this fundraiser, to purchase a ticket to the auction gala, and to see the photographs up for auction, please: http://snap-toronto.com/
Exhibition
All That is Left Unsaid/ at the very point where words fail us
Michèle Pearson Clarke and Erika DeFreitas
Curated by Sally Frater
Opening reception: Friday, March 10, 2017 from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Michèle Pearson Clarke and Erika DeFreitas
Curated by Sally Frater
Opening reception: Friday, March 10, 2017 from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Artists Michèle Pearson Clarke and Erika DeFreitas maintain independent art practices yet both explore shared themes of mourning, loss, and the textures of language in their work. Their two-person exhibition at Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts showcases work in video, photography and textiles, and highlights each respective artist’s unique approach to navigating the fraught processes of bereavement and rituals of lamentation.
With Audre Lorde acting as both subject and surrogate, Michele Pearson Clarke’s All That is Left Unsaid is a daughter’s elegy for her mother. Both Audre Lorde and Clarke’s mother lived with cancer for 14 years, and the absence of their wisdom, guidance and love is experienced as an ongoing loss for the artist. This short, experimental documentary reflects on all other black women gone too soon, in contemplating this aspect of grief.
;it was in the air, as they say., is DeFreitas’ continued exploration of working through issues of loss and ritual collaboratively with her mother. In this recent body of work, she addresses both loss and ritual through examining her and her mother’s different relationships to Catholicism and the quiet tension that hovers between them. In the multimedia work, sometimes the metonymic object is an absence multiple facets of migration are logged throughout the project, whether it be a documentation of the artist’s mother’s movement from Guyana to Canada, the transfer of skills from one hand to the next, or the physical relocation of this blanket from our home to various sites of installation.
With Audre Lorde acting as both subject and surrogate, Michele Pearson Clarke’s All That is Left Unsaid is a daughter’s elegy for her mother. Both Audre Lorde and Clarke’s mother lived with cancer for 14 years, and the absence of their wisdom, guidance and love is experienced as an ongoing loss for the artist. This short, experimental documentary reflects on all other black women gone too soon, in contemplating this aspect of grief.
;it was in the air, as they say., is DeFreitas’ continued exploration of working through issues of loss and ritual collaboratively with her mother. In this recent body of work, she addresses both loss and ritual through examining her and her mother’s different relationships to Catholicism and the quiet tension that hovers between them. In the multimedia work, sometimes the metonymic object is an absence multiple facets of migration are logged throughout the project, whether it be a documentation of the artist’s mother’s movement from Guyana to Canada, the transfer of skills from one hand to the next, or the physical relocation of this blanket from our home to various sites of installation.
Publication
Curator, Grace Aneiza Ali, discusses my work and the other works included in her exhibition, UnFixed Homeland, in her essay. For more information on this issue of Transition, please visit: hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/transition-121
Achievement
MACLARENARTCENTRE, BARRIE
John Hartman Award 2016
Erika DeFreitas 2016 Recipient of the John Hartman Award
John Hartman Award 2016
Erika DeFreitas 2016 Recipient of the John Hartman Award
The MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie is pleased to announce that the 2016 recipient of the John Hartman Award is Erika DeFreitas. DeFreitas is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist. In her practice, she explores the influence of language, loss and culture on the formation of identity with textile-based works and performative actions that are photographed, placing an emphasis on process, gesture and documentation. She is a graduate of the Masters of Visual Studies Program at the University of Toronto. Her work has been included in group shows in the United States in venues such as Project Row Houses in Houston, the Pollock Gallery at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas and the Houston Museum of African American Culture. Her upcoming exhibitions include those at the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Museums of Mississauga, Open Studio in Toronto and the Art Gallery of York University. DeFreitas is a recipient of the 2016 Finalist Artist Prize from the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts. Her work can be seen at www.erikadefreitas.com
The John Hartman Award is made possible with the generous support of MacLaren patron and regional artist John Hartman. This annual award of $4000 is granted to an emerging artist who is producing strong work and who could truly benefit by more time in the studio for research, experimentation and the development of new work. The artist is selected based on a recommendation from the MacLaren’s curatorial team and the award is administered by the MacLaren Art Centre. Past recipients include visual artists Richard Watts (2010); Duane Linklater (2011); Matt Bahen (2012); Julia Vandepolder (2013); Matt Macintosh (2014); and Tanya Cunnington (2015). As Executive Director Carolyn Bell Farrell comments, “The MacLaren is committed to fostering artistic talent. Through John Hartman’s generous support, an opportunity is provided annually for an emerging artist to explore and develop their creative potential with confidence, building a solid platform for future success.”
John Hartman was born in Midland, Ontario in 1950 and studied fine art at McMaster University in Hamilton. A leading Canadian artist, he has exhibited internationally and his works are found in numerous important public, corporate and private collections. His national touring exhibition Cities (presented at the MacLaren Art Centre in the fall of 2008) focused on aerial views of cities and harbours; shores, coastlines and bodies of water remain a major element in his practice. Hartman lives and works in Lafontaine, Ontario and is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto.
Images: Erika DeFreitas. Photo: Courtesy of the artist (left); John Hartman. Photo: André Beneteau (right).
Exhibition
Position As Desired: Exploring African Canadian Identity | Photographs from the Wedge Collection
February 11 – May 7, 2017
Art Gallery of Windsor
Opening & Launch Party
Friday, February 10, 7 – 10pm
Including works by:
Yannick Anton
Buseje Bailey
Jon Blak
Deanna Bowen
Sandra Brewster
Michael Chambers
Erika DeFreitas
Pete Doherty
Stan Douglas
Stella Fakiyesi
Fred Herzog
Anique Jordan
Christina Leslie
Jalani Morgan
Megan Morgan
Zanele Muholi
Dawit L. Petros
Kara Springer
Stacey Tyrell
David Zapparoli
In The Black Canada Collective:
Nina Aning
Donna Paris
Sonia Godding Togobo
February 11 – May 7, 2017
Art Gallery of Windsor
Opening & Launch Party
Friday, February 10, 7 – 10pm
Including works by:
Yannick Anton
Buseje Bailey
Jon Blak
Deanna Bowen
Sandra Brewster
Michael Chambers
Erika DeFreitas
Pete Doherty
Stan Douglas
Stella Fakiyesi
Fred Herzog
Anique Jordan
Christina Leslie
Jalani Morgan
Megan Morgan
Zanele Muholi
Dawit L. Petros
Kara Springer
Stacey Tyrell
David Zapparoli
In The Black Canada Collective:
Nina Aning
Donna Paris
Sonia Godding Togobo
Position As Desired: Exploring African Canadian Identity | Photographs from the Wedge Collection is the first major exhibition to examine the history, movement and experiences of African Canadians through contemporary photography. This touring exhibition was co-organized with the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) where it first opened in 2010, before travelling to The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (Halifax) in 2013. Conceived and organized by Windsor-born art collector Kenneth Montague, the exhibition presents a wide variety of photographic works from his personal archive - the Wedge Collection - ranging from rare vintage portraits of the first African immigrants to Canada to contemporary works by established artists. Through works by emerging artists as well as a commissioned video work by the collective In the Black Canada – a video based on a series of interviews with members of Windsor’s Black community – the exhibition attempts to instigate a conversation about the experiences of African Canadians within the context of Canada’s 150th anniversary.
Performance
Publication
Check out a discussion between myself and Senior Curator of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Crystal Mowry, in issue No. 45 of NOMOREPOTLUCKS!
We talk about repetition, the body, and inheritance.
Exhibition
Image: Passage of Time by Amelia Jimenez
ENRAGED, INERTIA RAN OFF
Banner stand interventions, September 2016 - September 2017
North east corner of James St. North and Wilson St., Hamilton, ON
Banner stand interventions, September 2016 - September 2017
North east corner of James St. North and Wilson St., Hamilton, ON
Artists:
Sandra Brewster
Erika DeFreitas
Insoon Ha
Lynn Hutchinson Lee
Amelia Jimenez
Ingrid Mayrhofer
Hitoko Okada
Vessna Perunovich
Wing Yee Tong
Elaine Whittaker
Curator:
Rita Comacho Lomeli
Sandra Brewster
Erika DeFreitas
Insoon Ha
Lynn Hutchinson Lee
Amelia Jimenez
Ingrid Mayrhofer
Hitoko Okada
Vessna Perunovich
Wing Yee Tong
Elaine Whittaker
Curator:
Rita Comacho Lomeli
Sunday Scene at the Power Plant
Artist Talk
Exhibition
; it was in the air, as they say.
Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography
Friday, July 8, 2016 to Saturday, August 27, 2016
Opening reception: Friday, July 8; 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography
Friday, July 8, 2016 to Saturday, August 27, 2016
Opening reception: Friday, July 8; 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
; it was in the air, as they say., is a continued exploration of working through issues of loss and ritual collaboratively with my mother. In this new body of work, we address both loss and ritual through examining our different relationships to Catholicism and the quiet tension that hovers between us.
I have been thinking about religion and the body.
I have been thinking about ritual, process, and relics.
I have been thinking about penance, atonement, and guilt.
I have been thinking about religion and the body.
I have been thinking about ritual, process, and relics.
I have been thinking about penance, atonement, and guilt.
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Exhibition
At the Seams
Curated by Third Space Art Projects
June 11-July 31, 2016
Opening Reception
The Grimsby Public Art Gallery
Friday, June 10
7pm-9pm
Curated by Third Space Art Projects
June 11-July 31, 2016
Opening Reception
The Grimsby Public Art Gallery
Friday, June 10
7pm-9pm
This group exhibition brings together established and emerging artists whose work provides visual exchanges between craft, contemporary art and constructions of identity. Given that both craft and what has commonly been thought of as women’s work are often defined along gendered lines, this exhibition will address and explore the realm of this work away from traditional roles of the “feminine." Employing either materials or methods that have historically been affiliated with craft (including sewing, weaving and embroidery) the artists engage with these forms outside of the ways in which we normally encounter them, creating sites for new frameworks of engagement. Collectively their symbolic and innovative interpretation of materials and materiality act as vehicles for eliciting emotional responses and as objects of aesthetic contemplation. In concert with the notion of the transcendental, through a range of media, including video, fibre arts and installation, the artists’ works explores a variety of issues including the embedding of historical narratives, racial stereotyping and violence, and the globalization of labour and culture.
Erika DeFreitas' enigmatic stitched works reveal archetypal forms made evident through shrouded bodies; Dionne Simpson’s paintings feature delineated canvasses that are influenced by West African weaving techniques and explore architecture and the social structure of urban spaces; Danielle Dean’s video-based work reveals the contentious intersection of capitalism, consumption, and popular culture; Julia Brown uses video to document issues of labour and vanishing methods of production; Megan Morgan uses textiles as a tool for connecting to familial and national identities; Olivia Neal employs unconventional materials to construct tapestries that act as an archive of personal history; Simone Aziga’s multimedia practice interrogates the intersections of fashion, gender and oppression; Tamara Huxtable uses embroidery as a means of documenting everyday incidents of racialized micro and macroagressions; and Sonya Clark fuses vernacular, readymade objects with materials such as hair to comment on history, violence and cultural traditions.
At the Seams is co-presented by Third Space Art Projects, a Canadian curatorial collective (co-founded by Pamela Edmonds and Sally Frater in 2009). It is a forum for the promotion, presentation and development of multidisciplinary art projects that engage transcultural and diasporic communities, with a particular focus on visual cultures of the Black Atlantic. Past projects have included the exhibition 28 Days held at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto and Georgia Scherman Projects, Mahaber Shaw'ate (Association of 7) by Dawit L. Petros at The Print Studio in Hamilton, as well as co-presented lectures by artist Coco Fusco along with LACAP (Latin American Canadian Art Projects) and Theaster Gates as part of the Prefix Institute for Contemporary Art’s Urban Speakers Series. Third Space Art Projects gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council Culturally Diverse Curatorial Projects program.
The Grimsby Public Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Town of Grimsby and The Ontario Arts Council. This exhibition was generously sponsored by Dr. Joe Paolasini & Stitch
Erika DeFreitas' enigmatic stitched works reveal archetypal forms made evident through shrouded bodies; Dionne Simpson’s paintings feature delineated canvasses that are influenced by West African weaving techniques and explore architecture and the social structure of urban spaces; Danielle Dean’s video-based work reveals the contentious intersection of capitalism, consumption, and popular culture; Julia Brown uses video to document issues of labour and vanishing methods of production; Megan Morgan uses textiles as a tool for connecting to familial and national identities; Olivia Neal employs unconventional materials to construct tapestries that act as an archive of personal history; Simone Aziga’s multimedia practice interrogates the intersections of fashion, gender and oppression; Tamara Huxtable uses embroidery as a means of documenting everyday incidents of racialized micro and macroagressions; and Sonya Clark fuses vernacular, readymade objects with materials such as hair to comment on history, violence and cultural traditions.
At the Seams is co-presented by Third Space Art Projects, a Canadian curatorial collective (co-founded by Pamela Edmonds and Sally Frater in 2009). It is a forum for the promotion, presentation and development of multidisciplinary art projects that engage transcultural and diasporic communities, with a particular focus on visual cultures of the Black Atlantic. Past projects have included the exhibition 28 Days held at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto and Georgia Scherman Projects, Mahaber Shaw'ate (Association of 7) by Dawit L. Petros at The Print Studio in Hamilton, as well as co-presented lectures by artist Coco Fusco along with LACAP (Latin American Canadian Art Projects) and Theaster Gates as part of the Prefix Institute for Contemporary Art’s Urban Speakers Series. Third Space Art Projects gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council Culturally Diverse Curatorial Projects program.
The Grimsby Public Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Town of Grimsby and The Ontario Arts Council. This exhibition was generously sponsored by Dr. Joe Paolasini & Stitch
Achievement
It is such an honor to be a finalist among so many inspiring cultural producers! Thank you to the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts for acknowledging my practice and the work that I do. Please see the press release below:
TORONTO FRIENDS OF THE VISUAL ARTS ANNOUNCES THE 2016 AWARDS
FOUNDERS ACHIEVEMENT AWARD $10,000
MIAI SUTNIK’S distinguished career as curator of photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario commenced in 1979 when she developed the photography program that now numbers over 60,000 items of historical significance. The AGO has recognized her contribution by naming her its first Curator, Emeritus, Photography. Miai is currently adjunct professor at Ryerson University.
ARTIST PRIZE $15,000
vsvsvs, a seven person collective based out of a warehouse in Toronto’s portlands. Their members are Wallis Cheung, Ryan Clayton, Anthony Cooper, James Gardner, Stephen McLeod, Laura Simon and Miles Stemp. Formed in 2010, vsvsvs’ activities encompass collective art making, a residency program, a formal exhibition space and individual studio practice. www.vsvsvs.org
FINALIST ARTIST PRIZE $5000 each
ERIKA DeFREITAS, a Toronto-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist. She explores the influence of language, loss and culture on the formation of identity through public intervention, textile-based works and performative actions that are photographed, placing an emphasis on process, gesture and documentation.www.erikadefreitas.com
BRIDGET MOSER, a Toronto-based performance and video artist whose work is suspended between prop comedy, experimental theatre, performance art, absurd literature, existential anxiety and intuitive dance.www.bridgetmoser.com
PROJECT SUPPORT $5000 each
ZUN LEE, a photographic artist for his exhibition Fade Resistance, a collection of thousands of Polaroid photographs depicting vibrant black family life. Lee is working toward an interactive digital archive of these photographs. www.zunlee.com
SHOWROOM, the inaugural exhibition at the newly named ART MUSEUM at UNIVERSITY of TORONTO, includes among others, works of several past awardees of the TFVA Artist Prize.
CHROMA LIVES, an exhibition and research project by researcher Erin Alexa Freedman and artist Lili Huston-Herterich, creating a “living archive” of the 1983 exhibition Chromaliving. Calling attention to the individuals behind the furnishings of Chromaliving and the subsequent generations of artists who work(ed) in this vein.www.lilihustonherterich.com
PROJECT SUPPORT $20,000
VTAPE, the TFVA support will assist in the ambitious renovation of the fourth floor space at 401 Richmond St. to create a 7400 sq. ft. climate controlled, barrier-free arts space. At its heart will be a newly built Media-Arts Research and Exhibition common. http://www.vtape.org/
TFVA has now given $555,000 to the GTA arts community since its inception in 1998.
FOUNDERS ACHIEVEMENT AWARD $10,000
MIAI SUTNIK’S distinguished career as curator of photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario commenced in 1979 when she developed the photography program that now numbers over 60,000 items of historical significance. The AGO has recognized her contribution by naming her its first Curator, Emeritus, Photography. Miai is currently adjunct professor at Ryerson University.
ARTIST PRIZE $15,000
vsvsvs, a seven person collective based out of a warehouse in Toronto’s portlands. Their members are Wallis Cheung, Ryan Clayton, Anthony Cooper, James Gardner, Stephen McLeod, Laura Simon and Miles Stemp. Formed in 2010, vsvsvs’ activities encompass collective art making, a residency program, a formal exhibition space and individual studio practice. www.vsvsvs.org
FINALIST ARTIST PRIZE $5000 each
ERIKA DeFREITAS, a Toronto-based multidisciplinary conceptual artist. She explores the influence of language, loss and culture on the formation of identity through public intervention, textile-based works and performative actions that are photographed, placing an emphasis on process, gesture and documentation.www.erikadefreitas.com
BRIDGET MOSER, a Toronto-based performance and video artist whose work is suspended between prop comedy, experimental theatre, performance art, absurd literature, existential anxiety and intuitive dance.www.bridgetmoser.com
PROJECT SUPPORT $5000 each
ZUN LEE, a photographic artist for his exhibition Fade Resistance, a collection of thousands of Polaroid photographs depicting vibrant black family life. Lee is working toward an interactive digital archive of these photographs. www.zunlee.com
SHOWROOM, the inaugural exhibition at the newly named ART MUSEUM at UNIVERSITY of TORONTO, includes among others, works of several past awardees of the TFVA Artist Prize.
CHROMA LIVES, an exhibition and research project by researcher Erin Alexa Freedman and artist Lili Huston-Herterich, creating a “living archive” of the 1983 exhibition Chromaliving. Calling attention to the individuals behind the furnishings of Chromaliving and the subsequent generations of artists who work(ed) in this vein.www.lilihustonherterich.com
PROJECT SUPPORT $20,000
VTAPE, the TFVA support will assist in the ambitious renovation of the fourth floor space at 401 Richmond St. to create a 7400 sq. ft. climate controlled, barrier-free arts space. At its heart will be a newly built Media-Arts Research and Exhibition common. http://www.vtape.org/
TFVA has now given $555,000 to the GTA arts community since its inception in 1998.
Exhibition
Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table
A composition by Emelie Chhangur
With arrangements by
Diane Borsato
Aleesa Cohene
Erika DeFreitas
Derek Liddington
Gertrude Stein
&
Terrarea
18 March – 30 April 2016
at
Art Museum, University of Toronto
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House
Opening Reception: Friday, March 18, 2016, 6 – 8 pm
Featuring Tender Buttons, a cocktail by Elle Flanders
Exhibition website: Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table
The tableau has come off the wall.
A composition by Emelie Chhangur
With arrangements by
Diane Borsato
Aleesa Cohene
Erika DeFreitas
Derek Liddington
Gertrude Stein
&
Terrarea
18 March – 30 April 2016
at
Art Museum, University of Toronto
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House
Opening Reception: Friday, March 18, 2016, 6 – 8 pm
Featuring Tender Buttons, a cocktail by Elle Flanders
Exhibition website: Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table
The tableau has come off the wall.
This exhibition is a rehearsal for Gertrude Stein’s 1922 play Objects Lie on a Table. It is also a dramaturgical proposition for its contemporary staging and reception. Objects Lie on a Table is a “still life” but its composition is not simply what is fixed in the frame, static in the picture. In this non-narrative play, a constellation of activities—of objects and people coming and going—dynamically shape its form through an arrangement that is never resolved: in Stein’s “still life” the play of objects and relations that constitute “dramatic action” are only ever “equal to its occasion.” (Objects Lie on a Table, 105) As a still-life-in-movement, Objects Lie on a Table playfully performs and plays around with pictorial conventions, as well as doing other strange and funny things. So we shall see.
Objects Lie on a Table could be considered a conversation between material objects and the spaces and people that shape and are shaped by their presence, their proximity, and their purposes. The play is a compositional experiment that takes the still life genre as a prompt that reconsiders relations between subjects and objects (agency) or foreground and background (gestalt) or parts and wholes (mereology) and proposes new ways of thinking arrangement that, in turn, arrange new ways of thinking. Just as Stein’s still life was composed in the continuous present—a mode of writing she likened to the pictorial innovations of her contemporaries, such as the painters Picasso or Cézanne—our rehearsal for her play today is developed as an iterative form (the rehearsal) through which to think, not about objects already arranged, but rather to think through objects that make new arrangements. We take our cue from the “nuns” that open the play. Perhaps a symbol of order and restraint, these nuns are in fact playing with objects, having “fun with funny things” (Objects Lie on a Table, 105), altering arrangements, in other words, messing with the system.
In 1922, Stein was asking questions in her time period that are equally relevant to ours—questions about relationality, systems theory, process thinking, and Object-Oriented Ontology. In Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table subject matter becomes the matter of subjects and its business the subjects of matter—a still life for the 21st Century, perhaps. Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table is likewise composed of the arrangements proposed by contemporary visual artists Diane Borsato, Aleesa Cohene, Erika DeFreitas, Derek Liddington, and Terrarea, whose practices offer new possibilities for thinking through connections made in the continuous present as a way in which to explore the new time-sense of this historic play—now as a composition in an art gallery and as an exhibition making its own arrangements. - Emelie Chhangur, curator
Image credit: Diane Borsato, Tea Service (the conservators will wash the dishes), 2013. Museum action/intervention and archival photographs. Courtesy of the Artist.
Objects Lie on a Table could be considered a conversation between material objects and the spaces and people that shape and are shaped by their presence, their proximity, and their purposes. The play is a compositional experiment that takes the still life genre as a prompt that reconsiders relations between subjects and objects (agency) or foreground and background (gestalt) or parts and wholes (mereology) and proposes new ways of thinking arrangement that, in turn, arrange new ways of thinking. Just as Stein’s still life was composed in the continuous present—a mode of writing she likened to the pictorial innovations of her contemporaries, such as the painters Picasso or Cézanne—our rehearsal for her play today is developed as an iterative form (the rehearsal) through which to think, not about objects already arranged, but rather to think through objects that make new arrangements. We take our cue from the “nuns” that open the play. Perhaps a symbol of order and restraint, these nuns are in fact playing with objects, having “fun with funny things” (Objects Lie on a Table, 105), altering arrangements, in other words, messing with the system.
In 1922, Stein was asking questions in her time period that are equally relevant to ours—questions about relationality, systems theory, process thinking, and Object-Oriented Ontology. In Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table subject matter becomes the matter of subjects and its business the subjects of matter—a still life for the 21st Century, perhaps. Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table is likewise composed of the arrangements proposed by contemporary visual artists Diane Borsato, Aleesa Cohene, Erika DeFreitas, Derek Liddington, and Terrarea, whose practices offer new possibilities for thinking through connections made in the continuous present as a way in which to explore the new time-sense of this historic play—now as a composition in an art gallery and as an exhibition making its own arrangements. - Emelie Chhangur, curator
Image credit: Diane Borsato, Tea Service (the conservators will wash the dishes), 2013. Museum action/intervention and archival photographs. Courtesy of the Artist.
Art Festival
ART SOUTERRAIN 2016: Must Art Be Appealing?
I am thrilled to be one of 86 artists to have work in this 8th edition of ART SOUTERRAIN.
ART SOUTERRAIN, a non-profit organization founded in 2009, which showcases each year international and local contemporary art, artists, and the architectural and cultural heritage of downtown Montreal’s underground city. As a unique contemporary art festival in North America, ART SOUTERRAIN aims to make art accessible to a wider audience by taking it out of it’s traditional exhibition spaces. The path of the exhibition includes 4 different trajectories totaling 7 km of the Montreal’s underground city. Art Souterrain transforms the underground city, showcasing the work of national and international, artists in a total of 13 locations.
To read more about the theme, please visit: http://www.artsouterrain.com/en/theme-2016/
To listen to the audio guide, please visit: http://www.artsouterrain.com/en/audioguide/
ART SOUTERRAIN, a non-profit organization founded in 2009, which showcases each year international and local contemporary art, artists, and the architectural and cultural heritage of downtown Montreal’s underground city. As a unique contemporary art festival in North America, ART SOUTERRAIN aims to make art accessible to a wider audience by taking it out of it’s traditional exhibition spaces. The path of the exhibition includes 4 different trajectories totaling 7 km of the Montreal’s underground city. Art Souterrain transforms the underground city, showcasing the work of national and international, artists in a total of 13 locations.
To read more about the theme, please visit: http://www.artsouterrain.com/en/theme-2016/
To listen to the audio guide, please visit: http://www.artsouterrain.com/en/audioguide/
Salon 44
Review: ARTFORUM
To read the review online, visit: ARTFORUM
“The One and the Many: A Self-Portrait in Seven Parts” PROJECT ROW HOUSES
2521 Holman Street
March 28, 2015–June 21, 2015
With a quiet yet undeniable force, this exhibition provides the emotional sense of absence or yearning brought on by migration or displacement. Cuban-born artist Alexandre Arrechea exhibits three photos from his “Architectural Elements” series (all works 2015), in which he holds pillars of building materials in front of brick or stone walls, obscuring his own laboring body behind paper, cement, or metal. A steady pulsing sound in Ayanna Jolivet McCloud’s installation accompanies a text piece on borders, bridges, and the reverberations of violence for Score (How to Hold On to Chasms and Fill with Matter). A crocheted white blanket by Erika and Cita DeFreitas, Sometimes the Metonymic Object is an Absence, is paired with an open invitation for the viewer to undo as many stitches as desired. Elsewhere in Nathaniel Donnett’s work The Off-Center of Invisibility, a brick wall has collapsed in the middle of a row house that has literally turned inside out with exterior walls and boarded-up windows installed within.
In a lyrical essay about the works, curator Sally Frater refers to them as a self-portrait, a reflection on her time in Houston and a lifetime of crossing borders. Throughout, these pieces seem to ask how individuality asserts itself within and through the expressions of the many. The exhibit provides a space for critical reflection on immigration and movement, nomadism and violence, while being careful not to posit polar binaries between the individual and the community but rather constructing a field of tensions in which these works are located. As Frater says, “In moments of recognition and in moments of disjuncture, I can find myself. Both are familiar, as is the space between them.” These artists have similarly created a profound place of reflection for both identification and detachment.
— John Pluecker
All rights reserved. artforum.com is a registered trademark of Artforum International Magazine, New York, NY
“The One and the Many: A Self-Portrait in Seven Parts” PROJECT ROW HOUSES
2521 Holman Street
March 28, 2015–June 21, 2015
With a quiet yet undeniable force, this exhibition provides the emotional sense of absence or yearning brought on by migration or displacement. Cuban-born artist Alexandre Arrechea exhibits three photos from his “Architectural Elements” series (all works 2015), in which he holds pillars of building materials in front of brick or stone walls, obscuring his own laboring body behind paper, cement, or metal. A steady pulsing sound in Ayanna Jolivet McCloud’s installation accompanies a text piece on borders, bridges, and the reverberations of violence for Score (How to Hold On to Chasms and Fill with Matter). A crocheted white blanket by Erika and Cita DeFreitas, Sometimes the Metonymic Object is an Absence, is paired with an open invitation for the viewer to undo as many stitches as desired. Elsewhere in Nathaniel Donnett’s work The Off-Center of Invisibility, a brick wall has collapsed in the middle of a row house that has literally turned inside out with exterior walls and boarded-up windows installed within.
In a lyrical essay about the works, curator Sally Frater refers to them as a self-portrait, a reflection on her time in Houston and a lifetime of crossing borders. Throughout, these pieces seem to ask how individuality asserts itself within and through the expressions of the many. The exhibit provides a space for critical reflection on immigration and movement, nomadism and violence, while being careful not to posit polar binaries between the individual and the community but rather constructing a field of tensions in which these works are located. As Frater says, “In moments of recognition and in moments of disjuncture, I can find myself. Both are familiar, as is the space between them.” These artists have similarly created a profound place of reflection for both identification and detachment.
— John Pluecker
All rights reserved. artforum.com is a registered trademark of Artforum International Magazine, New York, NY
Exhibition
This exhibition, Ontario in Âjagemô, features 13 artworks from the collection of the Canada Art Council Art Bank. The exhibition will be up from April 30th - August 30th, 2015 in Ottawa, Ontario. The exhibition space is located at 150 Elgin Street and is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free.
Ontario in Âjagemô is presented in association with the National Arts Centre’s Ontario Scene and will be a part of the Gallery Crawl on May 3 from
1 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more information on the gallery crawl, please visit Ontario Scene
For more information on the exhibition, please visit: Ontario in Âjagemô
Ontario in Âjagemô is presented in association with the National Arts Centre’s Ontario Scene and will be a part of the Gallery Crawl on May 3 from
1 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more information on the gallery crawl, please visit Ontario Scene
For more information on the exhibition, please visit: Ontario in Âjagemô
Exhibition
Project Row Houses - Round 42
The One and the Many: A Self-portrait in Seven Parts
Curated by Sally Frater
Opening reception: March 28, 2015
On view: March 28 - July 21, 2015
The One and the Many: A Self-portrait in Seven Parts
Curated by Sally Frater
Opening reception: March 28, 2015
On view: March 28 - July 21, 2015
Bringing together the work of artists based in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean and Europe, curator Sally Frater organizes Round 42: The One and the Many: A Self-portrait in Seven Parts, which both responds to the mission of Project Row Houses and is reflective of her time spent in residency at PRH, the Third Ward and Houston. Stemming from her ongoing engagement with notions of site, Round 42 will feature photography, video, textile, text-based and sculptural installation. The round draws its main title from Grant Kester’s book The One and the Many that critically examines the politics of participatory art practices. Participating artists include Alexandre Arrechea, Erika DeFreitas, Delio Delgado, Nathaniel Donnett, Kenya Evans, Ayanna Mccloud, and Nicole Miller.
For more information visit: The One and the Many: A Self-Portrait in Seven Parts
For more information visit: The One and the Many: A Self-Portrait in Seven Parts
Project Row Houses (PRH) is a community-based arts and culture non-profit organization in Houston’s northern Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African American neighborhoods.
Exhibition
The Work of Mourning
February 26, 2015 - April 12, 2015
February 26, 2015 - April 12, 2015
Opening: Thursday, February 26, 2015
Artist Talk: Saturday, March 7th, 2015 at 1 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, March 7th, 2015 at 1 p.m.
Erika DeFreitas investigates ideas of absence, loss, and memorialization through textile-based practices, and performative actions that are photographed, reaching for ways to make the impermanent permanent, or to engage in ritualistic acts with the hopes of regaining what is lost.
Art Gallery of Mississauga
300 City Centre Drive.
Mississauga, ON L5B 3C1
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Art Gallery of Mississauga
300 City Centre Drive.
Mississauga, ON L5B 3C1
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Art Gallery of Ontario - Massive Party - HOTBED - April 23, 2015
Looking forward to participating in this year's AGO's Massive Party. For more information and to purchase tickets visit: AGO MASSIVE PARTY
Akimbo Hit List
I was very excited to be invited to share my top 5 current interests and obsessions on Akimbo.
Here is a sneak peak at the list:
1. Emmet & Logan
2. Black lives have always mattered
3. Feminism
4. Mental health/wellness
5. Lists
To read a description of each interest/obsession, please visit my hit list at Akimbo
Here is a sneak peak at the list:
1. Emmet & Logan
2. Black lives have always mattered
3. Feminism
4. Mental health/wellness
5. Lists
To read a description of each interest/obsession, please visit my hit list at Akimbo
Exhibition
Stranger than Fiction
Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University
Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University
Opening Reception: Friday, November 21, 2014, 6 - 8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 22, 2014, 1 p.m.
Exhibition Run: November 14 - December 13, 2014
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 22, 2014, 1 p.m.
Exhibition Run: November 14 - December 13, 2014
Bringing together video, painting, textile and sculpture, this exhibition features works that record and high-light the occurrence of the absurd in everyday or commonplace settings. Artists Julia Brown, Erika DeFreitas and Nicole Miller employ modes of performance, documentary and transcription to explore intersecting issues of migration, history, politics, commerce and ancestry to reveal underlying themes of violence, exploitation, isolation and exchange. Veering into terrain that is often simultaneously tragic and humorous, the works capture a series of moments and scenarios that remove us from the realm of the mundane and transport us to the space of the extraordinary.
Curator: Sally Frater
Curator: Sally Frater
Photorama 2014
Collector's Preview: Gallery TPW Collector Members are given first opportunity to purchase works on Thursday, November 27, 6 - 9 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, November 28, 6 - 9 pm
Sale continues: Saturday, November 29, Noon - 5 pm + Tuesday, December 2 - Saturday, December 6, Noon - 5 pm
Photorama Tour: Sophie Hackett offers insight into Photorama 2014, Wednesday, December 3, 7 pm
Admission to Photorama is FREE.
This year marks the 28th anniversary of Gallery TPW's annual Photorama fundraising exhibition, featuring over 80 artists exhibiting contemporary photography and lens-based work. Photorama has become one of the most successful seasonal art sales in the city, and this year's selection will not disappoint.
We are thrilled to be hosting Photorama 2014 in our new location at 170 St Helens Avenue. This 3,300-square-foot warehouse space will contain more work than ever before by a plethora of emerging, mid-career and established artists. We invite all Gallery TPW friends and supporters to join us during Photorama to experience the space in the midst of renovations and see for yourselves the potential this new facility has for showcasing innovative lens and screen-based media, as well as a variety of discursive, multi-media, and engaging programming.
A complete list of participating artists is available online at www.gallerytpw.ca/photorama2014
Opening Reception: Friday, November 28, 6 - 9 pm
Sale continues: Saturday, November 29, Noon - 5 pm + Tuesday, December 2 - Saturday, December 6, Noon - 5 pm
Photorama Tour: Sophie Hackett offers insight into Photorama 2014, Wednesday, December 3, 7 pm
Admission to Photorama is FREE.
This year marks the 28th anniversary of Gallery TPW's annual Photorama fundraising exhibition, featuring over 80 artists exhibiting contemporary photography and lens-based work. Photorama has become one of the most successful seasonal art sales in the city, and this year's selection will not disappoint.
We are thrilled to be hosting Photorama 2014 in our new location at 170 St Helens Avenue. This 3,300-square-foot warehouse space will contain more work than ever before by a plethora of emerging, mid-career and established artists. We invite all Gallery TPW friends and supporters to join us during Photorama to experience the space in the midst of renovations and see for yourselves the potential this new facility has for showcasing innovative lens and screen-based media, as well as a variety of discursive, multi-media, and engaging programming.
A complete list of participating artists is available online at www.gallerytpw.ca/photorama2014
Exhibition
WE WON'T COMPETE
April 26 – September 21, 2014
With Abstract Random, Sonja Ahlers, Eleanor Bond, Allyson Clay, Erika DeFreitas, Servulo Esmeraldo, Andrew Harwood, Jesi The Elder, Hannah Jickling, Margaret Lawrence, Rita Letendre, Johnson Ngo, Bodo Pfeifer, Adee Roberson, Arthur Secunda, Fiona Smyth
April 26 – September 21, 2014
With Abstract Random, Sonja Ahlers, Eleanor Bond, Allyson Clay, Erika DeFreitas, Servulo Esmeraldo, Andrew Harwood, Jesi The Elder, Hannah Jickling, Margaret Lawrence, Rita Letendre, Johnson Ngo, Bodo Pfeifer, Adee Roberson, Arthur Secunda, Fiona Smyth
What FAG is:
FAG is a response, a process, a site, a protest, an outcry, an exhibition platform, an economy, a framework, and an opportunity. We host, we fund, we advocate, we support and we claim. FAG is located in Toronto, Canada and is run by artists Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue.
WE WON'T COMPETE is the second articulation of FAG's Feminist Art Collection and is comprised of collected art works as well as materials and documentation from social sculptures and happenings at the FAG over the past four years.
WE CAN'T COMPETE/WE WON'T COMPETE
WE CAN'T KEEP UP/WE WON'T KEEP DOWN
These statements are an acknowledgement of the dilemmas of feminist and queer cultural participation and describe the all too familiar push/pull of working across discourses and converging dialogues.
At the Art Gallery of Windsor:
The opportunity offered through the Art Gallery of Windsor to exhibit works from their collection as well as ours provides us with the chance to test a new model within institutional parameters - to challenge and however temporarily change the system. We aim to create a collaborative exhibition that is inclusive, that recognizes artists at every stage in their careers, that offers opportunities for publication and remuneration, and that makes them visible within a public and social framework fulfilling FAG's desire to make artists who are almost always invisible- visible.
The economies of art institutions and the powers that dominate the art world do not champion, or recognize artists working from the margins. It is this truth and injustice that prompted the creation of the Feminist Art Collection. FAC is as much an archive as it is an intervention into the economic hierarchies that fail to value feminist and queer artists (including artists of colour, women artists, Aboriginal artists, trans artists and artists with disabilitiy/ies).
What FAC is:
The Feminist Art Collection is a deterritorialized body of feminist art collected by FAG and through an interactional network of artists and enablers in support of queer and feminist cultural production. Art that enters into the FAC is bought from the artists and exists in the care of an enabler. Institutions (like the Art Gallery of Windsor) that borrow from the FAC enter into a declaration of participation, a social contract that acknowledges the value of the artwork and ensures the artist will be paid for the exhibition of the work. The FAC does not contain, possess, and capitalize on artists. As this young collection grows we struggle with the language for feminist description. How do we describe an object or image or sound piece as feminist and/or queer?
All of the art in this exhibition incorporates abstraction - of visual codes, of relationships and of bodies in relation to space. When we looked through the collection held by the Art Gallery of Windsor we discovered the same kind of obvious holes that most collections have. To speak plainly, there are very few pieces by artists of colour/feminist and or queer artists. But as feminist curatorial scholars have noted, art history is full of holes, fissures and absences. The way through this is to use absences as an opportunity to create a presence (we are borrowing heavily from Helen Molesworth's theory of feminist curating). Maybe we can actually quote her here.
Need to connect the opportunity abstraction offers us to be representative/ to feel free of the didactic in order to use a responsive, intuitive, feeling model and to create a ‘community'of works
WE WON'T COMPETE. We aren't going to fix what's broken. Instead we bring work into the gallery that calls out to the collection, summons it forth and imagines a new. This strategy allows for a kind of utopic vision; using social networks, friendship, activism, provocation and queer family making, we create a queer/feminist collection of work from both absence and presence. We find ways for the work to touch, to relate, to repair.
This community of work stands up together - stronger and more visible as a collective consciousness than if they were to stand alone. In bringing the individual works into close proximity we create a resistant genealogy. We take out the hierarchy, the uniqueness of each and make the whole unique.
Molesworth, Helen. "How To Install Art As A Feminist" in Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art, edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz, MOMA publications, 2009.
Deirdre Logue and Allyson Mitchell
FAG is a response, a process, a site, a protest, an outcry, an exhibition platform, an economy, a framework, and an opportunity. We host, we fund, we advocate, we support and we claim. FAG is located in Toronto, Canada and is run by artists Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue.
WE WON'T COMPETE is the second articulation of FAG's Feminist Art Collection and is comprised of collected art works as well as materials and documentation from social sculptures and happenings at the FAG over the past four years.
WE CAN'T COMPETE/WE WON'T COMPETE
WE CAN'T KEEP UP/WE WON'T KEEP DOWN
These statements are an acknowledgement of the dilemmas of feminist and queer cultural participation and describe the all too familiar push/pull of working across discourses and converging dialogues.
At the Art Gallery of Windsor:
The opportunity offered through the Art Gallery of Windsor to exhibit works from their collection as well as ours provides us with the chance to test a new model within institutional parameters - to challenge and however temporarily change the system. We aim to create a collaborative exhibition that is inclusive, that recognizes artists at every stage in their careers, that offers opportunities for publication and remuneration, and that makes them visible within a public and social framework fulfilling FAG's desire to make artists who are almost always invisible- visible.
The economies of art institutions and the powers that dominate the art world do not champion, or recognize artists working from the margins. It is this truth and injustice that prompted the creation of the Feminist Art Collection. FAC is as much an archive as it is an intervention into the economic hierarchies that fail to value feminist and queer artists (including artists of colour, women artists, Aboriginal artists, trans artists and artists with disabilitiy/ies).
What FAC is:
The Feminist Art Collection is a deterritorialized body of feminist art collected by FAG and through an interactional network of artists and enablers in support of queer and feminist cultural production. Art that enters into the FAC is bought from the artists and exists in the care of an enabler. Institutions (like the Art Gallery of Windsor) that borrow from the FAC enter into a declaration of participation, a social contract that acknowledges the value of the artwork and ensures the artist will be paid for the exhibition of the work. The FAC does not contain, possess, and capitalize on artists. As this young collection grows we struggle with the language for feminist description. How do we describe an object or image or sound piece as feminist and/or queer?
All of the art in this exhibition incorporates abstraction - of visual codes, of relationships and of bodies in relation to space. When we looked through the collection held by the Art Gallery of Windsor we discovered the same kind of obvious holes that most collections have. To speak plainly, there are very few pieces by artists of colour/feminist and or queer artists. But as feminist curatorial scholars have noted, art history is full of holes, fissures and absences. The way through this is to use absences as an opportunity to create a presence (we are borrowing heavily from Helen Molesworth's theory of feminist curating). Maybe we can actually quote her here.
Need to connect the opportunity abstraction offers us to be representative/ to feel free of the didactic in order to use a responsive, intuitive, feeling model and to create a ‘community'of works
WE WON'T COMPETE. We aren't going to fix what's broken. Instead we bring work into the gallery that calls out to the collection, summons it forth and imagines a new. This strategy allows for a kind of utopic vision; using social networks, friendship, activism, provocation and queer family making, we create a queer/feminist collection of work from both absence and presence. We find ways for the work to touch, to relate, to repair.
This community of work stands up together - stronger and more visible as a collective consciousness than if they were to stand alone. In bringing the individual works into close proximity we create a resistant genealogy. We take out the hierarchy, the uniqueness of each and make the whole unique.
Molesworth, Helen. "How To Install Art As A Feminist" in Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art, edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz, MOMA publications, 2009.
Deirdre Logue and Allyson Mitchell
Exhibition
FACE VALUE at Gallery 1313
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 20, 7-9pm
Exhibition Run: February 19 – March 2, 2014
ARTISTS: Jordan Clarke, Erika DeFreitas, Olivia McGilchrist
CURATOR: Heidi McKenzie
The exhibition Face Value explores the complexities of mixed-race identity described by theorist Diana Taylor as "the double-coded neither/nor subjectivity." The three artists featured in the exhibition engage in self-portraiture to narrate their experiences of being mixed race women of Caribbean / European descent. In the artists' work, the mask is the focal point of self-reflexive inquiry − one that embodies, interrogates, and performs mixed-race in order to destabilize racialized stereotypes. The artists' use of masks – both literally and metaphorically – challenges society's ideas of who these women might be, at face value.
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Special thanks to Andrea Fatona and The State of Blackness: Production to Presentation conference,OCADU Student Union, and Dr. Kenneth Montague of Wedge Curatorial Projects.
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 20, 7-9pm
Exhibition Run: February 19 – March 2, 2014
ARTISTS: Jordan Clarke, Erika DeFreitas, Olivia McGilchrist
CURATOR: Heidi McKenzie
The exhibition Face Value explores the complexities of mixed-race identity described by theorist Diana Taylor as "the double-coded neither/nor subjectivity." The three artists featured in the exhibition engage in self-portraiture to narrate their experiences of being mixed race women of Caribbean / European descent. In the artists' work, the mask is the focal point of self-reflexive inquiry − one that embodies, interrogates, and performs mixed-race in order to destabilize racialized stereotypes. The artists' use of masks – both literally and metaphorically – challenges society's ideas of who these women might be, at face value.
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Special thanks to Andrea Fatona and The State of Blackness: Production to Presentation conference,OCADU Student Union, and Dr. Kenneth Montague of Wedge Curatorial Projects.
Photorama 2013
Collectors Preview Thursday, November 28, 6 - 9 pm
Opening Reception Friday, November 29, 6 - 9 pm
Sale continues Saturday, November 30, Noon - 6 pm
Tuesday, December 3 - Saturday, December 7, Noon - 6 pm
Admission is FREE!
This year marks the 27th anniversary of Gallery TPW's annual Photorama fundraising exhibition featuring over 80 artists exhibiting contemporary photography and lens-based work. Photorama has become one of the most successful seasonal art sales in the city, and this year's selection will not disappoint.
Photorama features work by some of Canada's most accomplished artists and promising young photographers. With most works priced below $600, Photorama offers seasoned collectors and first-time buyers alike the opportunity to buy limited edition photographs and artwork. Each sale from Photorama directly assists with the operations and programming at Gallery TPW, while also supporting local artists and culture in Toronto.
A complete list of participating artists is available online at www.gallerytpw.ca/photorama2013
Exhibition
A boat is a floating piece of space: Opening Friday, May 17, 6:30
Curated by Sally Frater
Houston Museum of African American Culture
The boat is a floating piece of space is an exhibition by Charles Campbell, Delio Delgado, Erika DeFreitas, Dionne Simpson and Stacey Tyrell - five Canadian artists who have cultural ties to the Caribbean. Featuring printmaking, painting, photography, and textiles, the collective works illustrate the ways in which national and personal histories, memory and notions of transition surface in each of their respective practices.
The boat is a floating piece of space draws its title from Michel Foucault's text Of Other Spaces, which explores the idea of the heterotopic space, a "non-place" that is both physical and mental. The exhibition also addresses the artists' negotiation of their liminal positions as the occupants of places that are located in-between culture, memory and geography, while simultaneously parsing the traces of inherited experiences and narratives that inform, and emerge in, their artistic production.
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Reviews
Here are two reviews of the exhibition DEATHS/MEMORIALS/BIRTHS which is now on at Centre3 for Print and Media Arts until April 13, 2013.
Stephanie Vegh on Erika DeFreitas at Centre3 for Akimblog
Exhibition
DEATHS/MEMORIALS/BIRTHS: OPENING FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 7-10
Centre3 for Print and Media Arts presents
Erika DeFreitas: DEATHS/MEMORIALS/BIRTHS
A mixed media installation curated by Pamela Edmonds
Opening Reception: Friday, March 8, 7-10 pm
Exhibition Run: March 1 – April 13, 2013
Erika DeFreitas: DEATHS/MEMORIALS/BIRTHS
A mixed media installation curated by Pamela Edmonds
Opening Reception: Friday, March 8, 7-10 pm
Exhibition Run: March 1 – April 13, 2013
Erika DeFreitas' interdisciplinary practice explores the influence of language, loss and culture on the formation of identity. Through performance, public interventions, relational exchanges and photographic documentation, her process-orientated works investigate constructs of memorialisation though conceptualist strategies. The installation, Deaths/Memorials/Births is a re-imaging of a project focused on the artist's archive of obituary, memorial and birth notices collected daily from the pages of the Toronto Star newspaper between 2006 and 2007. Leavened by an interest in the affective power of the disruptive gesture and minimalist aesthetics, DeFreitas systematically cut away the announcements' original images and texts, painstakingly replacing back resonant words which form a compelling series of metaphoric narratives. The product of this act is then digitally photographed as a means of questioning authorship, the extent of absence, and the limits of time. The display includes a methodical compilation of the original newspaper remnants coated and preserved in beeswax, testaments to lives lived, to labour endured and to inevitable passages. Based in Toronto, Erika DeFreitas is a graduate of the MVS program at the University of Toronto and has presented projects in artist-run centres in Canada and the United States. Recent and upcoming exhibition sites include Gallery TPW, A Space Gallery, Gallery 44, Propeller Centre for Visual Arts in Toronto; the Houston Museum of African American Culture; performances with the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art; and a residency at Mentoring Artists for Women's Art (MAWA) in Winnipeg.
Pamela Edmonds is a visual and media arts curator who received her BFA and an MA in Art History from Concordia University, Montreal.
Centre3 for Print and Media Arts
173 James Street North
Hamilton, ON
L8R 2K9
Gallery hours: Wednesday to Saturday 12 noon to 5 pm
For information contact 905 524 5084
Or e-mail programming@centre3.com
Pamela Edmonds is a visual and media arts curator who received her BFA and an MA in Art History from Concordia University, Montreal.
Centre3 for Print and Media Arts
173 James Street North
Hamilton, ON
L8R 2K9
Gallery hours: Wednesday to Saturday 12 noon to 5 pm
For information contact 905 524 5084
Or e-mail programming@centre3.com
Photorama 2012

This year marks the 26th anniversary of Gallery TPW's annual Photorama fundraising exhibition featuring over 70 artists exhibiting contemporary photography and lens-based work. Photorama has become one of the most successful seasonal art sales in the city, and this year's selection will not disappoint. Photorama 2012 is open to the public from
November 30 – December 8, 2012 with an exclusive Collectors Preview on November 29th, 6 – 9 pm. For more information visit: www.gallerytpw.ca
November 30 – December 8, 2012
Collectors Preview: Thursday, November 29th, 6 – 9 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, November 30, 6 – 9 pm
Sale continues: Saturday, December 1, Noon – 6 pm
Tuesday December 4 – December 8, Noon – 6 pm
Admission to PHOTORAMA is free.
November 30 – December 8, 2012 with an exclusive Collectors Preview on November 29th, 6 – 9 pm. For more information visit: www.gallerytpw.ca
November 30 – December 8, 2012
Collectors Preview: Thursday, November 29th, 6 – 9 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, November 30, 6 – 9 pm
Sale continues: Saturday, December 1, Noon – 6 pm
Tuesday December 4 – December 8, Noon – 6 pm
Admission to PHOTORAMA is free.
New Faces: Portraits from the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank
Jardins de Metis - Reford Gardens
July 2 to September 30, 2012
New Faces: Portraits from the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank is a collaboration with Jardins de Metis-Reford Gardens and the Canada Council Art Bank. The Art Bank is replacing the family portraits in the main house, Estevan Lodge, with portraits from the Art Bank Collection.
My artwork, "The Impossible Speech Act," will be exhibited!
Jardins de Metis - Reford Gardens
July 2 to September 30, 2012
New Faces: Portraits from the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank is a collaboration with Jardins de Metis-Reford Gardens and the Canada Council Art Bank. The Art Bank is replacing the family portraits in the main house, Estevan Lodge, with portraits from the Art Bank Collection.
My artwork, "The Impossible Speech Act," will be exhibited!
Publication
BlackFlash Magazine
Photographs from the series "A Teleplasmic Study with Doilies," was written about and accompanied a column written by Michael Davidge in the Winter 2012 issue of BlackFlash Magazine!
Davidge's essay is a three part column titled, "Message Pictures: Adventures in Reading Images."
You can read an unedited version of his column on his website: http://michaeldavidge.blogspot.ca/ or you can purchase a copy of the magazine at www.blackflash.ca.
Davidge's essay is a three part column titled, "Message Pictures: Adventures in Reading Images."
You can read an unedited version of his column on his website: http://michaeldavidge.blogspot.ca/ or you can purchase a copy of the magazine at www.blackflash.ca.