Gallery
One
Katie
Bethune-Leamen
Orchid
mantis.
Tom
Selleck.
Hats.
(Gold-hatted,
high-bouncing
lover.)
Also
hats.
Katie
Bethune-Leamen’s
new
work
continues
her
preoccupation
with
the
presence
and
resonance
of
objects.
Combining
amorphous,
blobbily
glazed
porcelain
forms
with
gaunt,
steel
supports,
and
a
maelstrom
of
orbiting
imagery
and
elements—high-crowned
hats,
irregular
neon
light
lines,
digitally
printed
silk
yardage,
vintage
movie
posters,
found
objects,
hairclips,
dangling
lumpen
pearls,
pretty
insects,
gaudy
framing
devices,
sheets
of
coloured
latex—Bethune-Leamen’s
installations
form
conversations
between
ambiguous
objects
that
elide
language
yet
remain
firmly
grounded
in
the
material
world.
Paralleling
the
evocative
title—Orchid
mantis.
Tom
Selleck.
Hats.
(Gold-hatted,
high-bouncing
lover.)
Also
hats.—the
artist
pieces
together
and
organizes
seemingly
irreconcilable
elements
in
a
choreography
of
objects
that
intersect
and
merge
on
intuitive,
metaphorical,
and
expressive
levels.
The
artist
acknowledges
the
support
of
the
Ontario
Arts
Council
and
the
Canada
Council
for
the
Arts
Gallery
Two
Catherine
Telford-Keogh
Dental
Dam
Catherine
Telford-Keogh
combines domestic,
industrial,
and
edible
materials
in
unfamiliar
ways
to highlight
inherent
connections
between
human
and
non-human
matter.
Adopting
the
forms
of
tables,
trays,
containers,
and
other
familiar
functional
objects,
her
sculptures
act
as
flatbed
terrains
for
the
accumulation
of
aqueous
and
encrusted
materials
mixed
beyond
easy
recognition.
Dental
Dam
presents
an
installation
of
new objects
configured
to
consider
the
excess
and
blockage
of
the
mouth;
a
porous
site
of communication,
sexuality,
and
ingestion. The
artist
overlays,
coats,
and
embeds
a
gamut
of
objects
and
liquids
that
shift
and
chemically
alter
over
time
to
simulate
aspects
of
digestion.
Her
intense
layering
of
elements
combine
to
form
chains
of
superimposed
ingredients—including
brand
names
such
as
Yankee
Candle®
Fragrance
Spheres™,
Froot
Loops®,
and
Purina®
Dog
Chow®.
The
use
of
prolonged
titles
and
lists
of
materials
makes
explicit
the
base
materiality
of
these
elements
and
their
relationship
to
capitalist
material
culture.
Telford-Keogh’s
work
suggests
a
discomfiting
intimacy
between
bodies
and
things
consumed,
evoking
underlying
links
between
ecology,
consumption,
and
bodily
function.
The
artist
acknowledges
the
support
of
the
Canada
Council
for
the
Arts.
Katie Bethune-Leamen. Composition for looking and being looked at and liking (a lot) through looking and then maybe things go downhill from there—Gustav von Aschenbach, Tadzio/Bjorn Andresen, with some bars of Dr. Bronner’s (lavender scent) and jambon bindle, 2017.
Catherine Telford-Keogh. Modern mathematics and sullied diapers was all Hal needed to formulate the truly terrifying theological models that characterize Contemporary Life, 2018.