PERSPECTIVES & RELATIVE REALTITIES

Rediscovering Beauty Through Art And Colour

Yanling Shi scenery, family, and home, began to mean fear, caution, and suffocation. Through Shen and Thea’s paintings and their music, we begin to see hope and beauty in the everyday scenes again.

Relative Realities

We are taken on a journey that shows us the playful exploration and joy of art. With most artworks in this exhibition created before the pandemic, it displays Shen and Thea’s memories connected to the creation of each piece.

Thea’s Coloured Glass Still Life captures my attention most enthusiastically. Its sheer scale and the intensity of its vibrant colours showcase her meticulous brushstrokes, and she excitedly describes that the process of creating this painting taught her about composition, light, and colour. This joy captures what the exhibition represents, this is an area of exploration: exploration of technique, exploration of materials, and the exploration of topic. Shen shows her appreciation for downtown Toronto with Flurry. Humorously, even our frustration towards the overwhelming atmosphere of downtown Toronto and the TTC can transform into nostalgia after a long period of lockdown. The painting conveys the longing for normalcy and the calming beauty of a familiar sight that had been suddenly taken from us. Responding to Shen’s nostalgia are Thea’s painted scenes from past family vacations, her own memories in conversation with Shen’s to reminisce about the “good old days”.

Conclusion

The two exhibitions together show off the unique chemistry between the artists as the two come together with their different experiences to have a conversation about the past few years. Feelings of anxiety and uncertainty that had occupied us for too long are replaced by the appreciation for simple joys in Renewed Perspectives, and Relative Realities explores this theme further. Many artworks in this exhibition were created before the pandemic, and the two exhibitions together trace the storyline of how the perception of daily life has been affected by the pandemic. The double feature exhibitions capture Shen and Thea’s different creative processes and visualises the conversation they have as friends as they talk about their memories of the past and their longing for a hopeful future.

Shen and Thea’s duo show ran from October 25th to November 5th, 2022. Please contact Gallery 1265 for an archival view.