Omar Badrin, Cry Baby, soft polyurethane tubing, nylon industrial fishing twine and mason line, 2015
Image courtesy of the artist
Humber Galleries is launching a fresh new vision with our fall show. We are declaring our earnest affection for creative people who help us see to the world and ourselves differently. Into You is a group exhibition presented across our two locations, Fall in Deep at North Space and On the Edge at L Space. Crushes can be confusing, exciting, and all-consuming—like being on the edge of a great void and surrendering to an intense feeling. The desire to be accepted by someone else can amplify self-conscious feelings of difference. And yet, as revolutionary poet Sonia Sanchez has written, ‘you can’t have relationships with other people until you give birth to yourself.’ Into You highlights artmaking as a meditative act of self-discovery. Like any great infatuation, the deeper one goes, the more there is to discover.
Featuring works by Omar Badrin, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, Francisco-Fernando Granados, Allyson Mitchell, Jagdeep Raina, and Xiaojing Yan, Into You dives deep into the compulsion to create variations of forms that are strangely attractive. They beg to be noticed. Through pastel drawings, crochet, sculpted paper, found textiles, or digital drawings on an iPhone, each artist tells a story about themselves, their communities, and how others see them. On the Edge at L Space explores themes of visibility and invisibility at the margins. Who or what goes unnoticed, blends in, and stands out? Fall in Deep at the North Space houses cocoons and second skins. These are protective spaces for transformation, becoming, and turning inward in total surrender. Together, the exhibitions are about belonging on one’s own terms.
Fall in Deep Artist Bios
Omar Badrin is an interdisciplinary artist born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His work stems from his upbringing in Newfoundland and focuses on cultural identity, as well as its construction and representation through the use of visual metaphors. Badrin received his MFA at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2015, where he was awarded a graduate medal for his work in the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art Media and Design program. Since graduating, he has also received project and travel grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Badrin currently lives in Toronto.
Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby have been working collaboratively since June 1994. Their work has been broadcast and exhibited around the world. Duke and Battersby are currently teaching at Syracuse University in Central New York. In 2010 they were shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award. Their work is distributed by Video Data Bank in Chicago, Argos in Brussels, V-Tape in Toronto and Video Out in Vancouver. In 2012, a book about their work, titled The Beauty is Relentless, was published by Coach House Press.
Allyson Mitchell is a maximalist artist working in sculpture, performance, installation and film. Her practice melds feminism and pop culture to investigate contemporary ideas about sexuality, autobiography and the body, largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft. Her works have exhibited in galleries and festivals across Canada, the US and Europe, including Tate Modern, the Textile Museum of Canada, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Andy Warhol Museum, Walker Art Center, The British Film Institute, Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is based in Toronto, where she is an Assistant Professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University. She is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects and she runs FAG Feminist Art Gallery with Deirdre Logue.
Xiaojing Yan is a Chinese-Canadian installation artist based in Markham, Ontario. She holds a B.F.A in decorative art from Nanjing Art Institute, Jiangsu, China, as well as a M.F.A in sculpture from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Yan’s sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and museums in China, Canada, and United States. Yan is the recipient of the 2014 Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the 2013 Mandarin Profile Awards of Fairchild TV, Project Grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts, and The Chalmers Arts Fellowship and Visual Artists: Mid-Career Grant from Ontario Arts Council.
Gallery Hours
Monday - Friday 10AM - 4PM
North Space will be closed Friday, September 1st, Monday September 4th, Friday September 8th, & Friday, October 6th - Tuesday, October 10th.
Opening reception: Thursday, September 7th, 4 - 7PM
Exhibition Images
