From the broad and various definitions of “home” to the connection between humans and nature, Wall Space Gallery has plenty of new works for us to ponder over this blistering summer. Let your eyes dance over the beauty of others’ artistic creations, and wrack your brains while you’re at it, as Wall Space Gallery proudly presents two group exhibitions this July: “Physical Presence” and “New Dimensions 2024.” The former celebrates the three-dimensional form, with ceramic and sculptural works by Dauma, Gosia, Martin Hyde, Marney McDiarmid, Patti Normand, and Jeannie Pappas. The latter is the inaugural annual exhibition in collaboration with the University of Ottawa’s BFA program, featuring works from emerging artists Élie Crighton, Emma Gauthier, Chris Glabb, Bella Laflamme and Erin Szturm.
In their unique approaches to using clay and mixed media, each artist in “Physical Presence” explores personal and community-based narratives through references to nature, the human body, and kitsch pop culture.
“There’s an innate interest in encapsulating ‘humanness’ across these six artists’ practices, as they engage our bodies with the presence of earthly material transformed,” says Manager and Curator of Wall Space Gallery Tiffany April.
We start with Martin Hyde, who gives us plenty to think about with the tropes of human sexuality, entertainment, and knowledge by playing with the different flavours of realism. The visceral imagery he plasters across porcelain bowls and dinner plates reveals a dark yet comedic view of human consumption of culture while combining the traditional with the modern.
Martin Hyde, Tiger Plate, ed of 15, porcelain, 10 1/4 x 10 1/4 in. Photo provided.
Meanwhile, Dauma, Marney McDiarmid, and Patti Normand use surrealism to promote avenues for how we see the human toll on the environment, the relationships between humans and animals, and how sculpture can lead to their empathetic understanding.
Dauma, with reckless abandon, stoneware, lustres, mixed media, 14 x 14 x 15 in. Photo provided.
Dauma uses her creativity to dehumanize the figure into a stoic vessel for plant life, where the human figure feels almost secondary, falling into a passive role of giving its body to foster imagined floral growths. Normand’s anthropomorphic characters combine human bodies with heads ranging from animal and avian to elements like fire and tornados. Her personification of environmental impacts brings immense, unrelatable aspects of nature, like weather events and wildfires, down to a relatable and empathetic human scale. Then there are McDiarmid’s installations, which feature endangered plant species invented by the artist, with their corresponding ‘seeds’ strewn below, reflecting our need to give objects meaning.
Marney McDiarmid, Untitled 2, porcelain, glaze, and oil paint, 8 1/2 x 3 in. Photo provided.
Patti Normand, Rosy, porcelain, underglaze and clear glaze, acrylic paint, 8 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. Photo provided.
Through the use of porcelain sculpture, Gosia and Jeannie Pappas translate their sentiments through fictitious figures, taking different approaches to facial features, body language and their material process.
Gosia, Hope, ed of 5, polymer gypsum, 13 x 7 x 7 1/2 in. Photo provided.
“Gosia’s figures appear as manifestations of inner thought, while Pappas creates a window into an alternate universe with creatures that feel partially human, partially ‘other,'” explains April.” They are embroiled in their roles within their drama, evident in their titles, such as ‘The Guardian,’ ‘The Alchemist,’ and ‘The Illusionist.'”
Jeannie Pappas, The Guardian, clay, wire, underglaze, and flock, 9 x 5 x 2 in. Photo provided.
Along with “Physical Presence” comes “New Dimensions.” From painting to printmaking to videos and much more, the five artists reveal the crooks and nannies of comfort and discomfort.
“Their respective approaches find common ground through their individually complex relationships to the concept of ‘home,'” says April, “and feminist and queer perspectives on the objectification and mythologizing of the self and the other.”
Self-portraits mark the basis of Erin Szturm, Élie Crighton, and Emma Gauthier’s works. From disrepair and abandonment to ominosity to even the objectification of the human body, these three have unique perspectives on their very beings.
Erin Szturm, Straying from the path, oil on canvas, 42 x 30 in. Photo provided.
Élie Crighton, Intérieur, animation displayed on cube televisions, 4 ft x 4 ft. Photo provided.
Emma Gauthier, flattened, ceramic and glaze, 8 x 8 x 2 in. Photo provided.
Additionally, Chris Glabb and Bella Laflamme highlight the social and physical structures around us that influence how we understand value, creation and self-determination. Through printmaking, the former artist composes pop culture imagery into ominous and ironic narratives of Queerness and Indigeneity. With a similar twist of humour, Laflamme’s video work, paintings, and construction-material sculptures playfully dissect materialistic value and use the field of construction as a metaphor for stability (and a lack thereof) in relationships.
Chris Glabb, Untitled (Fragment from 7 Red Shoes), silkscreen, ink, on wood panel, diptych, 8 x 10 in (each). Photo provided.
Bella Laflamme, All Original Fixtures, oil on wood panel, 48 x 60 in. Photo provided.
But everyone deciphers art in their way, so why not give these creations a chance? See it all for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
For more information, visit www.wallspacegallery.ca.
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