Bodyscapes: Rebellion + Revolution
Bodyscapes: Rebellion + Revolution showcases an ensemble of artists in different stages of their careers, merging painting, embroidery, performance, and photography to elucidate the nuanced (and political) intersections of queer experiences. This group exhibition offers a contemplative exploration of the complex interplay between the corporeal, gender identity, societal oppression, and the processes of socialization.
The thematic core of the exhibition revolves around the intricate dialogues between rebellion and societal revolution within the context of queer narratives, elucidating the struggles and challenges inherent to the pursuit of authentic selfhood.
: :
_ CURATED BY
<<< rafael zen >>>
_ LOCATION
<<< Massy Arts Gallery >>>
_ ARTISTS
<<< oliver lawrence rinne >>>
<<< khalil alomar >>>
<<< wilson s. wilson >>>
<<< sean alistair >>>
WILSON S. WILSON documents and produces multimedia works confronting their objectified body and reconsidering their own conflict with gender performance. Their work provokes both the conventions of the art object and the functions of domestic practices by invoking emotional discomfort, absurdity and expressions of affection. As someone outside of the gender binary their art explores content, mediums, and themes that not only evade societal traditions but oppose them. This is seen in their use of ephemeral mediums like performance, interactive installation and video, their foregrounding of queer and marginal bodies as subjects, and in the questions their work raises about gender, expression, subjects/objects, normativity, and convention. These subjects also reflect their existence as an autistic person; both neurodivergence and transness involve friction with unseen social scripts, and their work inevitably reveals and questions them. In this way the two aspects of Wilson’s otherness reinforce each other.
KHALIL ALOMAR is a queer Lebanese Canadian artist whose creative practice primarily revolves around collage, multimedia installation, and performance. The work they have focused on conceptually are within the realms of anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-religion and anti-establishment theory and practice. Currently, they are pursuing a degree in New Media + Sound Art at Emily Carr University. They live in the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Selíl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, colonially known as Vancouver. Alomar’s recent practice is centered on sound, video/paper collage, and photography as mediums that provide a platform for critiquing systemic aggressions and religious abuse.
_Instagram = @everythingiscollage
SEAN ALISTAIR is a queer self-taught Canadian born artist currently residing in Vancouver. His art is a visual journal where he discusses the intense impact of how seemingly mundane or innocuous experiences can be to someone who is not only queer but also bipolar. Each of Sean’s mixed media works are completely sewn and created by hand over hundreds of hours and focus on material exploration, found objects, recycling and reworking old paintings. Due to his mental illness Sean experiences prolonged periods of mania which he has learned to utilize as a way to keep his concentration in order to finish his works. What is most important to him is that his works live and change with the light, angle or distance they are viewed at.
_Instagram = @sean.alistair
OLIVER RINNE is a Queer visual artist and current student at Emily Carr University of Art + Design following his completion of an Associates Transfer Degree at Skagit Valley College. He currently lives and creates in Vancouver, BC on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. He has not received any formal training for his artwork but has taken multiple art classes and participated in numerous art competitions including the Congressional Art Competition and Celebrate the West. Rinne maintains the goal of creating a visceral engagement between his viewer and his artwork, especially in relation to oppression and abuse. He concentrates on the human body, ambiguous meat, and realism while also implementing Christian iconography in pieces critiquing the institution of colonial, organized religion. Oliver experiments with multiple mediums but is currently capturing a broader range of subject matter revolving around religion, queerness, and the body within interdisciplinary sculpture.
_Instagram = @orangerines_