Julianna Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer | Stuffed

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Julianna Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer, "Stuffed"

Courtesy of the Gallery.

The Manitoba Craft Council welcomes you to the sumptuous visual feast that is Stuffed, a new solo exhibition of ceramic work by emerging artist Julianna Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer. Upon entering the gallery, a profusion of multi-tiered cakes, cupcakes and goblets beckons. A banquet is in progress. The soft pastel colours, scrolling curves, and gilded edges of an excessively ornamented tableau seduce you. Indeed, the work seems designed to entertain, impress, and ultimately swallow up guests within folds of sensuous decoration. “Let them eat cake!” it purrs.

But just as you’re about to obediently dip your finger in the frosting, a second glance jolts you out of the Rococoma you’ve been unwittingly lulled into. Things take a rather sinister turn. Is that a chicken leg in the gateau? What’s crawling on the cupcakes? Your stomach begins to turn as you take in the grotesque scene before you - doll heads vomit icing, entrails curl snake-like on plates, chicken feet emerge from pastry towers, the colour palette now appears fleshy and wan. You’ve definitely lost your appetite.

Julianna Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer is a ceramic artist born and raised in Morris, Manitoba. A farm girl at heart, Julianna returned home to Manitoba after living in Vancouver, preferring to to embed herself in an agricultural community rather than live in an urban environment where she was removed from the processes of food production. Her ceramic artwork reflects her upbringing and background: Her mother is a pharmacist, and her father is a farmer. Living in rural Manitoba has given Zwierciadlowska-Rhymer a front row view of the ongoing industrialization of farms.  Her artwork explores the effect this shift in farming practices has had on the health of farmed animals, and by extension, the health of the populations eating them.