Subliminal
Exhibition
November 29 - December 6, 2023
Sandrine Dickel, Geoffrey Cheung, Julia Pal and Jason Bomers
Sandrine Dickel, Geoffrey Cheung, Julia Pal and Jason Bomers met in an online art class during the pandemic. Almost 3 years and more than 50 zoom conferences later they continue to come together to encourage, critique, support and inspire each other. These artists of different ages, histories and backgrounds, have found camaraderie and friendship. Their first exhibition, Rencontre in the summer of 2022, allowed them to meet each other in person. Subliminal is their latest offering; a parting gift before one of the members returns to their home country.
Subliminal stimuli can reside beneath the individual's conscious perception. Art-making is communicating in a language that hasn’t been invented yet; it can be like deciphering a map with no legend or feeling out an escape from a dark tunnel. The work in this exhibition, Subliminal, reaches into and explores the subconscious, in mark and image making, performance and sculpture. It attempts to bring what we cannot see to the surface to help us understand ourselves and our humanity.
@jason_bomers_artsta
jasonbomers.com
Sandrine Dickel's work reflects the need to express compassion by freezing a moment from a longer yet unknown story. In this new series, she painted anonymous people captured in an abandoned and intimate moment of their day, asleep in Toronto's subway cars. With a deeply benevolent look, she expressed her love for this city and its inhabitants, finding beauty in ordinary life.
Julia Pal is interested in the inner journey that guides us towards action, change, and transformation, as well as the ways we cope with loss, grief and the unknown. Her sculptures seek to capture a state of mind or emotional response. Each figure is on a pilgrimage seeking deeper understanding of self, circumstances, and others. Her photographs act as a metaphor for this emotional landscape.
Jason Bomers is a multidisciplinary artist; the materials and process of his projects are concept-driven and in the past he has created paintings, drawings, sculptures, performances, installations, photographs or a combination of these different mediums. In the body of work entitled “C-Scrolls”, Jason has created entirely abstract works, that sit somewhere between a photograph and a painting. For “Mime Memes”, Jason uses the mime character to explore whiteness. There is a dark humorous quality to this work; what makes the viewer laugh also exposes problems with the patriarchy.
Geoffrey Cheung is a visual artist interested in the transformation of memory and rituals of remembrance. His practice explores the ways we inherit familial and cultural memories, and how we then mold them to our form in service of our own sense of self. In his current works, Geoffrey takes personal photographs and transforms them with post-processing software. These digital landscapes are memory impressions that highlight our reliance on technological devices in acts of remembrance. Yet, as memories are transformed through recall, new imagined realities become possible, opening up space for new conversations with the past.
1. Sandrine Dickel TTC sleepers no.19, 2023 oil paint on map 23,6" x 50,8". 2. Sandrine Dickel TTC sleepers no.17, 2023 oil paint on map 23,6" x 50,8"
1. Julia Pal Awaiting Wisdom, 2023 paper mache, cardboard, acrylic paint; 12”W x 13”H x 7 1/2”D. 2. Julia Pal Washed Ridges. 2023 Digital Print on Float Mount 18”x 18”
1. Jason Bomers Mime Meme - View, 2023 Archival Digital Print 5" x 7". 2. Jason Bomers Purple Scroll, 2023 Paint, Pencil Crayon and Spray Paint on Archival Digital Print 45” x 32”
1. Geoffrey Cheung Homecoming, 2022 Digital print on watercolour paper 18” x 27” 2. Geoffrey Cheung Another Garden, 2023 Digital print on watercolour paper 48”x40”
