women – Page 7 – curated.

Podcast: Ariane Plante s’entretient avec Marie France Cournoyer – Femme Folks Fest

March 10, 2022

‎curated. co-editor and curator Peppa Martin interviews Canadian photographer Shira Gold. This podcastwas first published at thecommotion.ca

Laura Jones

March 8, 2022

Laura Jones A life of work: Activism and advocacy through the lens of a camera Baldwin Street Gallery Photographer, community activist,... Read More

Mia | Helena Hauss, 2015

February 14, 2022

Mia | Helena Hauss, 2015

One of my favourite scenes from the television series Sense8 is when one of the main characters is about to step into the ring, for an underground boxing match; a match between a male and female fighter – and the referee, in response to the man’s bravado, his arrogant assurance of his victory, is that “smart money’s on the skinny bitch.”

And the “smart money” turns out to be right.

Helena Hauss’ images are definitively feminist, but with a forceful humour that amuses and fractures a simplistic reading of her work. The aforementioned exchange came to mind due to the shirt worn by Hauss’ Mia, proudly proclaiming ‘skinny bitch’, as she reclines amidst tasty decadent snacks, not just unmindful of our judgement but meeting our gaze straight on, provocatively licking her fingers with eyes that make it clear she couldn’t give less of a fuck about what ‘we’ think.

Hauss works in ballpoint pen: her skill and discipline in this unusual format is awe inspiring, and there’s an audacity required in employing this medium that is matched by the vivacity and authenticity of the players in her tableaux. Whether in Mia’s unflinching stare, or the energy of The Fight or the impressive minutiae and detailed renderings of The Bet or The Sleepover, Helena Hauss is awesome in her medium.

Her words: My works all explore a same running theme of Irreverence : challenging an imposed decorum and reveling in one’s own pre-established labels rather than having to apologize for them.It’s about self-acceptance through self-deprecation and satire.

More of Helana Hauss’ work can be seen at her site, and her IG: @helenahauss.
She often shares videos of her process, which is lovely to enjoy as well.

~ Bart Gazzola

dream listener | karen elaine spencer, 2006 – 2007

February 4, 2022

dream listener | karen elaine spencer, 2006 – 2007

In a dream I saw a way to survive and was filled with joy. (Holzer)

I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me. (The Matrix: Reloaded)

i wrote my dream on cardboard, went out into the street and held the cardboard dream in front of me. at the end of the day i abandoned the cardboard dream. over the year one hundred and ninety-four dreams were written on cardboard and shared this way. (karen elaine spencer)

There is a poetic brutality to karen spencer’s dream listener porteur de rêves works, and especially several that she’s shared online recently, looking backwards at this series. (The image I’m sharing here is from 2007)

These are stark images, both visually and in terms of what spencer has chosen to present. spencer and I became acquainted when she exhibited a postcard/billboard project (using an image taken from her first invitation with ATSA’s l’État d’urgence) in Saskatoon some time ago; we joked about how both of us liked to walk in the frigid temperatures of our respective cities, and how that gave us a different sense of the place and the people. spencer often seems to notice things that others ignore, in these images: sometimes those are discarded objects. Often they are detritus, or indicators, of discarded people. spencer’s work is very political, and often in the public sphere, as well.

“Her work questions the hierarchy inherent in use values and investigates how we, as transient beings, occupy the world we live in. The widely held belief in a linear movement forward, or “progress”, is confronted through her repetition of actions that lead nowhere. Rambling, dreaming, loitering and riding the metro are all activities spencer has previously undertaken as part of her practice. Actions are sustained over time (often a year or more) rendering her artistic practice indistinguishable from her daily life. She works with what is near at hand, materials that speak of our day-to-day existence: cardboard, oranges, bread, chalk. Through a détournement of materials or intentions spencer intervenes into spaces; hoping to shift, even if only ever so slightly, our perceptions of what is possible.” (from The New Gallery)

spencer’s words are plaintive yet engaging. There’s a sadness evoked that seems to speak to you, on a very personal level. Her other texts in this series are equally melancholic: I dreamed my insides were falling out astride a pile of domestic discards, i dreamt i wanted nothing more to do with death, i dreamt i was waiting but i don’t know what for and i dreamed i lay in a puddle and watched the rain fall on me (the latter two both on wood that we all recognize as that used to board up windows, an arbiter of damaged, empty – unwanted – spaces).

More of the dream listener interventions can be seen here. More contemporary works by spencer can be found on her IG feed: @karenelainespencer

~ Bart Gazzola

Xiaojing Yan

February 1, 2022

Stepping into an exhibition by artist Barry Ace is a transformative experience. The bold colour palette, the textural combination of materials, and the meticulous attention to detail quickly captivates you. The entanglements of these elements reveal unique narratives that change the lens through which we see others. Suzanne Luke offers some thoughts on the art an ideas of Barry Ace in this article.

Lori Coulter – Diviner

January 27, 2022

Lori Coulter Diviner this piece is tilted... loose page by Lori Coulter When you view Lori Coulter's work, it's almost as... Read More

Podcast: Peppa Martin talks to Shira Gold

January 18, 2022

‎curated. co-editor and curator Peppa Martin interviews Canadian photographer Shira Gold. This podcastwas first published at thecommotion.ca

Zhang Xiaogang | Girl and Tree, 2007 – 2008 – December, 2021

December 29, 2021

Zhang Xiaogang | Girl and Tree, 2007 – 2008

Several years ago, a friend suggested Jan Wong’s book Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now to me. It was a memoir that touched upon major historical events, but always with a personal stance of Wong’s experiences as both the child of Chinese immigrants to Canada, but also as a person who, as a teenager in the late 1960s, was enamoured of Mao Tse Tung, and lived for some time in China during the Cultural Revolution. Years later – as chronicled in the book – she would be in Beijing when the Tiannamen Square Massacre happened. It’s a good book: Wong is a meticulous narrator, and spares neither her young self, nor larger mythologies of the State (whether China or Canada) from an older, wiser voice of criticism.

When I first encountered the work of Zhang Xiaogang, Wong’s stories of the Cultural Revolution (which she was protected from, being a Canadian still too anaesthetized by ideology over reality) immediately came to mind. Zhang’s figures are grim: they also make me recall a ‘joke’ from another friend, whose family fled communist Poland, about ‘Soviet photo face.’ This is the idea – which any cursory review of official photography from the USSR, or any totalitarian state, really, will reveal – that you must offer a facial expression, in all images, that is neutral, lest it be used against you later, and you find yourself in the gulag or a re education camp.

“Inspired by contemporary tensions in China, Zhang Xiaogang makes grim, unsettling portraits that consider identity and heredity in a collectivist state. The artist draws on influences that include political iconography, Chinese charcoal drawings, distorted Surrealist compositions, and family portraits from the Cultural Revolution era. His paintings, often executed in grisaille with bursts of bright yellow or red at the center, explore how varied individual histories are flattened into conformist representations.” (from here, where you can enjoy more of Zhang Xiaogang’s artwork) ~ Bart Gazzola