By Zenith Wolfe
Studio Sixty Six’s latest art exhibition, Constructed Truths, may not seem to agree on what the “truth” is, but that’s because it’s not meant to.
One of the most striking works on display is Andrew Morrow’s Portrait Style, Standing, Front View. Its dozen figures and various landscape elements, inspired by photographs and live models Morrow used as references, are stitched together in ways that are impossible and incomprehensible. The beach slopes up on the left and travels a far distance forward in the middle, while a property sits to the far right of the canvas. Meanwhile, the trans man exposing the scars of his top surgery on the left is much bigger than the uniform-wearing schoolchildren in the middle, and the woman between these figures wears a dress that makes her look both slim and pregnant.
Portrait Style, Standing, Front View by Andrew Morrow. Photo: Zenith Wolfe.
Through exposed sections of canvas, a heavy painterly style, partially obscured words, and incomplete lines, Morrow’s seemingly unfinished painting suggests that our journeys with our bodies are continual and ever-changing. Our sense of self should not be tied to one single social standard, as everyone’s experiences will be different.
It’s also perhaps a visual recreation of how uncertain and divided we felt during the pandemic: Much like the pregnant woman who does not actually see the schoolchildren, despite looking directly at them, we cannot see any of the figures’ faces. This inverts our experiences from the pandemic, when all we could see were peoples’ faces on screens, but the painting still retains that same feeling of longing.
Fireside by Atticus Gordon. Photo: Zenith Wolfe.
As both the largest and most central work in Studio Sixty Six, this painting carries implications into the rest of the exhibition. Atticus Gordon drew lots of his inspiration from Morrow, yet his works tend to fall on the more figural and linear side. Gordon also references the landscape paintings made by early 1900s Canadian artists Tom Thomson and Lawren Harris, who were formative to the country’s most influential group of painters, the Group of Seven. Revered though they may be, their paintings are widely criticized for erasing Indigenous peoples from the depicted lands.
Gordon appears to push back on this erasure by depicting faceless figures in Landscape Aberration, similar to Morrow, as if popular culture isn’t capable of recognizing the eyewitness or spoken accounts of Indigenous people whose lands are stolen or destroyed. Fireside places an ad for a beer can over some beautiful mountains; the lands are taken to be monetized and used for recreational purposes, in much the same way the Group of Seven painted “unoccupied” landscapes to be used as promotional material.
Landscape Aberration by Atticus Gordon. Photo: Zenith Wolfe.
The Grove, meanwhile, displays an environment with an impossible combination of a waterfall, a forest grove, a snowy prairie, and the deep sea. A figure with the only visible face in the entire gallery wears a confused expression that appears only vaguely behind a thick layer of blue. She’s in a contorted position that makes her look like she’s swimming above the land, an equally impossible scenario to that of Morrow’s works.
The final artist, Alexandra Flood, is the most abstract of the three. The titles of her works have no apparent connection to the works themselves. Alpha Decay VII, for example, has an orange and yellow gradient with layers of blue and purple brushstrokes in the lower half. The gradient appears seamless until closer observation reveals tiny flecks of different colours, and the brushstrokes appear random until the waves start to appear like an intentional pattern. It could be vaguely called a landscape, but it would be a mistake to say that’s the only possibility.
Alpha Decay VII by Alexandra Flood (right) and Landscape Aberration by Atticus Gordon (left). Photo: Zenith Wolfe.
Flood’s works finally hammer home the overall concept of the exhibition: There is no single truth to any image. Through the changing nature of our bodies, the conflicting representations of Canadian landscapes, and the misleading nature of first impressions, there are always multiple perspectives that can reveal themselves given enough time and introspection. When this message slowly washes over a Studio Sixty Six visitor, it makes the entire exhibition well worth a visit.
Constructed Truths is on display at Studio Sixty Six (101-858 Bank St) until July 2. Visit studiosixtysix.ca for more information and hours.
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