HOME

Review by Joanna de Villa

Photos by Arthur Dennyson Hamdani

“Home” is a loaded word that weighs heavy with personal meaning, giving this exhibition depth as an emotional experience. It carries comfort, trauma, and growth – all of which surfaces within this exhibition through the varying mediums of the artists. It’s wonderful serendipity that Gallery 1265’s Home exhibition and the UTSC Drama Society season theme coincide, allowing our team to take part in the storytelling of these experiences.

Christiana and Asif both pay homage to Toronto directly with our skyline. Asif’s take on the skyline is derivative of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, bringing the popularized painting to an urban understanding with a familiar foreground and a creative use of lighting to brighten the night sky. Christiana’s Bridge 2 Home(s) is a beautifully coloured piece with bright, vibrant tones that catch the eye. While the use of labels are on the nose, the point is clear: to share two homes is to constantly feel at a fork in the road.

Jung’s I Am A Smoothie reinforces this sentiment as a photo series, using a food analogy to convey the literal blend of their identities. This nestles nicely with Heng’s MAKAN SEDAP. As many artists use food as a medium to create palatable discourse around culture, it is a genre itself for Asian artists. The miniature paint series draws on the artists’ love of cooking and art. I hope that she will continue to add more Singaporean dishes to the series to create a more robust image of a full dinner table.

Teng’s Family and Living Room has a nostalgic tone to it. The photo series lures the viewer into a sense of reminiscent revelry only for the tone to shift when the blue glow of the screen interrupts the picture, emphasizing the disconnect between families. Home Sweet Home by Kouyoumadjin also plays with the idea of disconnect within family but rather than an unnatural disconnect where in spite of growing pains, the chair continues to stand. It carries a spirit of resilience.

Lam and Septirymen bring forward the concept of home video with their works. Home is a personal inlet into Lam’s life, sharing the same nostalgic feel as Teng’s work, allowing the viewer to delve into a nostalgic revelry along with them. The award-winning piece is an invitation to slow down and remember your roots. Septirymen‘s Recharge resembles a live surveillance feed that features their desk. It has a lonely feel to it — a dimly lit room with a turned out chair, waiting for its companion to return — very similar to that felt during the solitary days of quarantine. Their description of it is chirpier than the label I prescribe, but that’s the beauty in the idea of home being so deeply personal.

Unfortunately, only a select number of pieces could be carried over to the lobby for the UTSC Drama Society’s Festival of the Arts. Chen’s piece Chinese Zodiac Tiger proudly stood facing the entrance, the first piece the attendees gravitated to while taking in the majesty of the piece. Aslam’s Tangled Threads is a beautiful multimedia piece that celebrates Pakistani artistry. Each night of our performances, I’d circle our lobby while gravitating to this piece and marvel at the weighted needle that hung off of the canvas.

The standout piece to me, and one that I was eager to have displayed in our lobby for the Festival was Goncalves’ Transfiguration. The black and white photo series allows the imagery to shine through, allowing the viewer to take in the details of the work. Of statues and uniforms, I’m particularly taken by the final image of the Holy Bible being set ablaze with incense sticks. In line with Goncalves’ intent to portray a lost home, it underscores the series’ collective theme of religious trauma. Immigrant stories are deeply steeped in trauma, but just as burning incense cleanses the air, art heals.

Home exhibition ran from November 22nd to the 29th. After its initial showing at Gallery 1265 space, a second showing took place in UTSC’s Leigha Lee Browne Theatre. The Home exhibition is the third annual themed exhibition and is made possible thanks to the EDA committee.