Childhood, grief inspire newest exhibits at Casa
Two everyday aspects of life, childhood and grief have inspired the latest exhibitions at Casa.
An opening reception will be held this evening to mark the opening of the two main gallery features.
In “Mama, Mommy, Mother, Mom” feminist artists April Matisz and Laura Ajayi use a variety of media to show how complex motherhood can be. A series of receiving blankets, along one wall, identifies some of the issues soon after birth — weight, fever, the blues.
Post-partum depression is a reality that must be addressed, Ajayi points out. Often members of today’s families are widely scattered, leaving new moms in relative isolation.
The two-woman show, says Matisz, tries to capture the demands of motherhood as they impact someone who’s making a career as an artist. “Motherhood is more complicated.”
To illustrate varied perceptions, the two — one living in Eastern Canada, the other here — traded photos of their young children; each has a five-year-old and a two-yearold. Then they sketched their perceptions of the other’s children.
But time and again, the artists point out, motherhood also means letting go. Some of their works convey the emotions felt when a child heads out to kindergarten — or to college.
Their show has whimsy as well. Draped across a white block, Ajayi has fashioned an 18-month accumulation of lint from laundry day, into something resembling the umbilical cord.
Its caption: “We used to be so much closer.”
For moms bringing their youngsters to the gallery, the artists have also placed a desk, paper and crayons in a quiet corner — just like church.
Steps away, Lethbridgebased artist Kasia Sosnowski has used ceramics to share “Good grief.”
What began as a response to a death in her own family has gradually become more generalized. Some of Charlie Brown’s “Good grief” has softened the hurt.
“I’m hoping to start a conversation about grief and these emotions,” she says.
In her work, that grief may spring from something as traumatic as loss of a limb, to more interpersonal situations that may require new understandings of “self.”
On a practical note, Sosnowski points out almost all the ceramic works were created in a studio at Casa.
Elsewhere at Casa, the “Book of Orton House” by Danin Lawrence is on view in the Passage Gallery. And a selection of works by 14 artists, selected as “The Best of Southwestern Alberta” by the Alberta Society of Artists, is on exhibition in the Concourse Gallery.
The new features will remain on view until Oct. 19. Casa gallery admission is free.