Event Dates
Time
5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Elizabeth Zvonar, Face, 2013, inkjet print mounted on Dibond, 121.9 x 76.2 cm. Collection of Amy Kazymerchyk.
Elizabeth Zvonar, Face, 2013, inkjet print mounted on Dibond, 121.9 x 76.2 cm. Collection of Amy Kazymerchyk.
Artist Talk
Artist Talk and Reception | Aporia (Notes to a Medium)
ADMISSION
Free
In person at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
No registration necessary
More event information here
Artist Talk: 5–6 pm
Opening Reception: 6–8 pm
Join us on Thursday, January 11 for a talk with Azza El Siddique and Jenine Marsh followed by the opening reception of the group exhibition, Aporia (Notes to a Medium).
Aporia (Notes to a Medium) considers how history, mythology, and wishful thinking entwine across media and through mediums. In this moment where faith in media, government, and institutions is further collapsing, where binarization is on the rise, where expressions of doubt are tactical, this exhibition includes artists’ works that contend with systems of belief and perception to trouble truth’s material (and immaterial) forms. Holding space for doubt – a space of critical reflection that contains multiple truths or exposes the limits of truth – is a strength of contemporary art. Doubt is part of nuanced thinking, and ambiguity may be fertile ground for possibility and otherwise thinking. But Janus-faced doubt is also a tactic. From the Greek word aporos, the exhibition’s title engages the paradoxical or impassable. This impasse functions as an expression of real or pretend uncertainty, something the works in the exhibition collectively query and channel.
Aporia (Notes to a Medium) is curated by Melanie O’Brian and made possible with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and the Belkin Curator’s Forum members. This exhibition includes work by Colleen Brown, Azza El Siddique, Dani Gal, Katie Kozak and Lucien Durey, Mark Lewis, Jenine Marsh, Jalal Toufic, and Elizabeth Zvonar.
Jenine Marsh is an artist based in Toronto who uses sculpture and installation to explore themes of agency, mortality and value. She uses coins as well as other paraphernalia of exchange through serialized processes of destruction and transformation to cultivate illicit and intimate responses to the shared conditions of end-stage capitalism. Marsh received a BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts, and an MFA from the University of Guelph. Marsh’s work has been exhibited at Cooper Cole, Toronto; Franz Kaka, Toronto; Centre Clark, Montreal; Vie d’ange, Montreal; Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver; Gianni Manhattan, Vienna; Union Pacific, London; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Essex Flowers, New York; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; OSL Contemporary, Oslo; Entrée Gallery; and Lulu, Mexico City. She has been artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts; AiR Bergen at USF Verftet, Bergen; La Datcha, Berlin; Rupert, Vilnius; and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson.
Azza El Siddique lives and works in New Haven, CT. Known for her large-scale sculptural environments, El Siddique combines steel and ceramic sculptures with ephemeral matter to explore ritual, mortality and memorialization. El Siddique holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art and a BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design University. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at MIT List Visual Arts Centre, Cambridge; Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal; Helena Anrather, New York; and Cooper Cole, Toronto. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at MOCA, Toronto; Gardiner Museum, Toronto; Oakville Galleries, Toronto; Shin Gallery, New York; and Green Hall Gallery, New Haven. She was a Skowhegan resident in 2019 and was a 2022 finalist for the Sobey Art Award.
