Becky Thera: Embrace

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Becky Thera, "What Remains (installation view)," 2023

textile installation, variable dimensions. Image courtesy of the Artist.

Opening Reception: Friday, June 16 from 8:00 - 10:00 PM

Becky Thera draws unexpected parallels between the ill-fated Shackleton Antarctic expedition and her experiences as an artistic swimmer (formerly known as synchronized swimming) in her exhibition, Embrace, locating non-gendered models for tenderness and touch through embroidered textiles, videos of bodies in water, and sound.

The experience of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic caused the artist to reflect upon the three years that crew members from the Shackleton expedition were stranded in the Antarctic; she likens the pandemic to "the idea of being adrift on an ice floe, disconnected from a world you once knew."

Thera creates a landscape of rippling expanses of fabric painstakingly stitched with silhouettes of men facing death drawn from images created by Shackleton expedition photographer Frank Hurley and the artist's great-grandmother's embroidery patterns of playful puppies, kittens, and flowers. Drained of their colour and frayed at the edges, Thera's embroideries seek to tear apart binary gender divisions and restrictive ideas of performing one's gender well and productively. Her embroideries contrast social conventions that limited people's experiences in the recent past: embroidery was confined to the home and devalued as non-creative women's work, while men could only embrace each other when confronted with mortality.

Water is a malleable motif throughout the exhibition: threatening to drown, offering the freedom of flotation and enveloping bodies in a liquid hug. A soundtrack of swelling waves and whale songs lightly echoes through the gallery, reminding us that we are not alone, tempting us to let go of what weighs us down.