Artspace presents
A National Test Market
Meagan Christou
Charlotte DiCarlo
Calla Durose Moya
Robin Love
Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas
Jemma Woolidge
October 13 – November 17, 2017
Gallery 1 & 2
Opening Reception
Friday October 13, 2017
7-10pm
Artspace
378 Aylmer Street North
Peterborough, ON
Please join Artspace on Friday, October 13 from 7-10pm for the opening of A National Test Market, a new exhibition featuring work by Meagan Christou, Charlotte DiCarlo, Callista Durose Moya, Robin Love, Amber Helene Muller St Thomas, and Jemma Woolidge.
A National Test Market is a group exhibition featuring the work of emerging artists with an established connection - in one way or another - to the Peterborough community. The exhibition’s title refers to city's long and somewhat unknown history as a testing ground for new products and technologies developed by large corporations that – should they be well received by the community - eventually be released for mass consumption across the country. It has been said that Peterborough earned this distinction, as the community’s demographics are representative of other settler communities across the nation, so: what works in Peterborough should work elsewhere. Featuring work by six emerging artists with varying ties to the Peterborough community, A National Test Market does not attempt to define the parameters of the community, but instead offer a glimpse at a specific moment in time.
About the Artists
Meagan Christou is emerging artist who works with photography, video installation, and performance. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Ryerson University in 2016. At Ryerson, her film installation, Lamentations, won Best in Show at Maximum Exposure in 2015, and her photograph, Faith, won Best in Show at Full Frame in 2014. Since graduating, her photography and film-based installations have been shown at Toronto Photographers Workshop (TPW), Ryerson Artspace at the Gladstone Hotel and Electric City Culture Council’s, New Visions/Old Lands, a special event in downtown Peterborough for Canada 150. She lives on a farm in the village of Mount Pleasant, Ontario.
Charlotte DiCarlo is a mother, a wife and an artist. Charlotte battled her way through OCAD University to get her Bachelor in Fine Arts after giving birth to a son in her second year, and dealing with the postpartum depression, and anxiety that followed. Charlotte tried to deal with her mental illness on her own hiding it from friends and family members for much longer than she should have. When she finally reached out for help she was given many wise words as well as medication. Charlotte now uses her art to take herself out of troublesome states of being that still come in the form of panic attacks, and back to her surroundings. Without her art she would not be able to function.
Calla Durose-Moya is an artist working and living in between Toronto and Peterborough. She is in her final year at Trent University, completing a degree in Philosophy. Calla is primarily interested in hybrid moving image work, having worked with both film and video, but is beginning more of a career in performance and installation with inspiration by early Canadian video work. Her work has been shown at Catharine Parr Traill College, Evans Contemporary, Peterborough, and Trinity Square Video, Toronto.
Robin Love is currently based in Toronto where she studies Sculpture and Installation at OCADU. She was born and raised in Peterborough, and is a former graduate of the PCVS Integrated Arts program. In the years between art schools, she pursued the sport of rowing, received a BA in Philosophy from U of T, and spent time living in Victoria, New Zealand, and Germany.
Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas is an emerging Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. Their practice is committed to developing public performative actions that are subverted. She is interested in materiality, absurdity, and failure. By studying communication through performative collaboration, solitary acts, and form modification, Müller St. Thomas seeks to create queer gestures that do not follow consistent criteria. ��Müller St. Thomas holds a BFA from Western University (2014), and completed her MFA at York University (2017). They have shown and performed in Toronto, Montréal, and London, (ON). Recent exhibitions include Things Little, curated by Vanessa Nicholas, and art( i f)ACTS, curated by Belinda Ho-Yan Kwan. In 2014 she was awarded the Canadian Embroiderers' Guild, London Memorial Prize, and is a beneficiary of the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Masters Scholarship (2016). They currently live and work in Toronto.
Jemma Woolidge is an emerging artist entering her final year at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School. Raised in Peterborough Ontario, she has already participated in many gallery shows including the Drool Collective, the genesis of her local visual arts’ involvement. Her work has also been exhibited in other local projects, such as SAD FEST at Sadlier House, and the Children of Satan show at Evan’s Contemporary, amongst other local endeavours. While Jemma’s principal venture is embroidery, she practices in many other mediums, traditional and contemporary. In addition to visual art, Jemma is very involved in the Peterborough music scene as one-third of local band Stacey Green Jumps, as well as several side projects.
Artspace’s main gallery is physically accessible, however gallery two is not.
If you have any questions please contact:
Jon Lockyer
Director + Curator
Artspace
jon@artspace-arc.org
705-748-3883
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