Exhibitions @ 10C

Each year, GAC Artist Members are invited to submit expressions of interest for solo or group exhibitions in the main floor gallery space at 10C Shared Space. 

Hannah West, What Has Been and What Will Be

Each drawing in this show is based on objects and spaces I have discovered in passing. I choose my subject matter by using scenes that stand out to me in the moment of encountering them. Oftentimes there are repeat locations such as stairwells and bathrooms – places we are not meant to linger and only occupy for a brief period of time. I am interested in liminal spaces, and the psychology behind this term, exploring transitional states of being through my drawings. I focus on these spaces and give them extra attention by emphasizing lighting, colour, and reflection. My goal is to place oneself within this transitional boundary and allow the viewer to reflect, to remain in the present moment without worrying about the past or what comes in the future. This moment of reflection may evoke a sense of comfort.

Hannah West is a multimedia artist from Hamilton, Ontario. She primarily works in drawing, painting and woodburning. Hannah graduated from the University of Guelph in 2022 with a BAH in Studio Art and a History minor. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at the University of Western Ontario. Hannah’s work portrays objects and spaces of everyday life that are often overlooked, emphasizing light, colour, and reflection. Her compositions focus on the comfort felt in isolation.

What Has Been and What Will Be will be on view until July 27th

ANNA GOLDING and Kira Alexanian, BLOT ON THE LANDCAPE

Anna Golding and Kira Alexanian’s takeover of 10C’s space explores how two artist’s distinct practices intertwine. Lore unfolds as Anna’s clever hand-cut spray painted stencils meet Kira’s intricate fibre and wire installation work. 

It is a real fiction. The blessed release after triggering a spray paint canister. Paint particles erupt helter-skelter from the nozzle tip. A hole opens and fills the expanse. Paint particles settle, but never rest. They wait for a cue unbeknownst to an outsider, and then rise. Blink and you will miss a subtle movement within a concentrated collection of pigment. Then, sure as can be, the Nozzleheads emerge; destined misfits and outcasts.

A tuft of fabric floats by and nestles itself into a scribble of wire. The Nozzleheads’ curious nature is piqued. Playful and airy, scraps of colourful fibre are caught in the wind. Fabric clusters and organic wire structures outstretch, a tapestry of scraps amassing. A blot on the landscape is what it is. A bold interruption in space. An unkempt environment, magnificent in colour, existing in stark contrast to a Nozzleheads graphic sore-thumb body. A blot on the landscape is what they are to each other. Their embrace would surely doom all things right in the world… wouldn’t it?

Yet, as if by design, an organic blanket of fabric scraps swells, sweeping up Nozzleheads in its path. Vines of wire and leaves of fabric curl around their extremities. Wire is for structure and pleasure. Fibre for comfort and shelter. A delicate balancing act tethers the bold and quick-witted Nozzleheads to a network of fibre and wire. The upper-hand is consistently passed off, back-and-forth, in a wild symbiosis.

Kira Alexanian (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, gatherer, and tinkerer currently interested in textiles, sculpture, and installation work. A recent graduate of the University of Guelph Studio Art program, Kira has developed an intuitive practice that reacts to surrounding environments, lived experiences, and her own personal yearning for all things whimsical and magical. Through organic textures, rich colours, and fantastical imagery, Kira references natural environments through a fabled lens. 

ANNA GOLDING (she/her) is a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, drawing, and installation. Thematically, her art practice clashes together elements of risk and humour and she has justly developed an affinity for using spray paint in numerous ways. Physically, her practice lies in multiples, slight variations of form, and play with density. Most recently, spray paint has become ANNA’s muse in her Nozzlehead series. The Nozzleheads are an imagined species that get created every time she spray paints, where the suspended paint particle remnants settle like dust and accumulate into groupings of Nozzleheads. Each stands only 8 inches tall, the same height as a spray paint canister. There is no question ANNA’s practice is heavily influenced by the world of street art, as she hungers to create icons and the iconic.

BLOT ON THE LANDCAPE will be on to view August 8th to August 30th.