Rebecca Bair: Deep Conditioning

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Rebecca Bair, "Conditioning," 2020

detail, shea butter and charcoal hair monoprint.

Rebecca Bair: Deep Conditioning, includes new work by this Vancouver-based artist. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Rebecca Bair was at the end of her MFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and staying with her parents in Ottawa. Eager to produce, she found a stack of 4x6” photo paper, left forgotten in a desk drawer. Slowly, she began to use the paper to draw on with a fine-tip black marker, creating circles inspired by the curls of her hair. This became a daily practice and an outlet for her anxiety—not only an antidote for the universal uncertainty, but also a record of daily life. These drawings are, in fact, integral to her larger practice, often referencing her hair and are made in paean of her identity as a Black woman.

Rebecca Bair is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver—the traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples—and a 2020 graduate from the Masters of Fine Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Since graduating, she has received the Governor General's gold medal for her academic achievements, and she has been in group shows at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Where Do We Go From Here?), the Surrey Art Gallery (Facing Time), Wil Aballe Art Projects (The Cinematic) and The Polygon Gallery (The Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize).