Beyond The Stone Angel: Artists Reflect On The Deaths Of Their Parents

×

Expand

Gabriela Agüero, "The Scent of White Flowers," 2021

archival inkjet print 61 x 165.1 cm. Collection of the artist

Beyond The Stone Angel: Artists Reflect On The Deaths Of Their Parents 

Featured Artists: 

Gabriela Agüero, Laura Barrón, Shauna Beharry, Deborah Carruthers, Erika DeFreitas, Sherry Farrell Racette, Gabriela García-Luna, Spring Hurlbut, Zachari Logan, Bev Pike, Robin Poitras, and Lyla Rye. 

Beyond the Stone Angel is an exhibition of deep personal significance to me as it grew out of the loss of both my parents in a short span in 2015-2016. As I was processing that loss, I became aware of a surprising range of artworks addressing this subject, including a handful of works already in the MacKenzie’s collection. The resulting exhibition of twelve artists is a poetic exploration that provides an entrance point to the grief that has affected so many of us, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Using their first-hand experiences to peel back the veneer of convention, the artists in this exhibition explore the life-altering aspects of this event. Their loss is articulated through a variety of cultural and artistic frames, often influenced by their diasporic, gender, and post-colonial identities.  

One constant in the works is a movement of attention from the concrete details of a life lived to something that is ephemeral, transparent, beyond the veil. In this in-between space, presence and absence, beauty and sickness, memory and oblivion, the individual and the cosmic, flicker and fluctuate. Stone-like opacity and spiritual transcendence overlap creating poignant monuments to the life-givers who have left. 

Curator Timothy Long

Film Program:

In conjunction with this exhibition, audiences are welcomed to view Separate Journeys, Shared Paths: filmmakers reflect on the death of their parents and grandparents a collection of curated short film