Emily Filler | Old New Borrowed Blue

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Emily Filler, "Bouquet (colour block + post cards)," 2023

mixed media on canvas, 48x48 inches. Courtesy of the Gallery.

Opening Reception: October 21st, 2023 from 2-4pm

Newzones is excited to present Old New Borrowed Blue, a solo exhibition of new work by Canadian contemporary artist, Emily Filler. 

Emily Filler’s paintings walk the line between the real and the imaginary. There is a sense of the familiar, but also the feeling that you are falling into a dream – flowers act as a departure point to a world that dissolves into abstraction.

Filler weaves together painting, printmaking and photography in her ‘painterly collages’, bringing together panels of color, meticulous patterning and floral elements. Dense mark-making contrasts with airy clouds of transparent color and screen-printed florals reveal themselves from behind cut and torn paper and canvas. As these processes and elements interlace, they create a hybrid between representation and abstraction, the natural and supernatural.

Living in downtown Toronto, Filler is often influenced by her ritual walk to the studio, where she observes the landscape shift from bustling city life to contemplative residential neighborhoods. Exploring this contrast, the works playfully collate the images and textures from both worlds. Filler’s personal connection to flowers is also at play, as many of the silk-screened images are taken from photographs of blooms and other plant life from her father’s garden, the same garden in which she spent time as a child.

Old New Borrowed Blue references Filler’s artistic experimentation in creating new works for the exhibition, paired with a familiar series – the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. ‘Borrowed’ relates to the imagery taken from various places including her dad’s garden and her visit to the Ottawa Tulip Festival this past spring. ‘Blue’ is a recurring colour throughout the new body of work; one which Filler states “feels calming after the last few years”.

As with all her work, Emily Filler brings these elements together to communicate a sense of joy. Not wishing to present the viewer with a realistic interpretation of the flower, but rather to convey the beauty and the impressions which they leave behind in our memories.

Emily Filler received her BFA Honours from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her work has been exhibited across North America and can be found in private and corporate collections world-wide.