Erika DeFreitas

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Erika DeFreitas, “Her body is full of light (often, very often, and in floods),” 2016, still, 4:22 min. (courtesy the artist)

The sounds of laughter and weeping are constant companions for visitors of Erika DeFreitas’ exhibition, close magic, at the Art Gallery at Evergreen in Coquitlam, B.C. They come from a dual-screen video in which DeFreitas and her mother, wearing matching white T-shirts, chuckle self-consciously. Their frivolity soon becomes melancholy, and it is the turning point that is most captivating, a moment that could be joy or sorrow.

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Erika DeFreitas, “at the very point where words fail us; (the old word foi, "faith"),” 2016, digital inkjet print, 38” x 30” each (courtesy of the artist)

The bond between DeFreitis and her mother is apparent throughout the show. At the very point where words fail us: (the old word foi, “faith”), a diptych of mother-and-daughter portraits, shows DeFreitas’ mother with a mass of white rosary beads wrapped around the lower half of her face. DeFreitas, meanwhile, has a rosary-like string of pebbles that have been wrapped in her own hair, then threaded through her teeth. Both are silenced by their rosaries. 

The actual hair-stones and plastic beads, mounded on two plinths beside the digital prints, make the images that much more visceral. DeFreitas, a Toronto-area artist with ancestry in Guyana, has spoken about her complicated relationship with Catholicism. The silencing that results from the physical muffling of the mouth can refer to censoring but also to quietude – solace rather than suffering. 

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Erika DeFreitas, “(les pâles se sont ouverts): On Larkspurs and Sorrows” (left) and “(les pâles se sont ouverts): On Pincushions and Lace,” 2017, digital inkjet print, 40" x 40" each (courtesy of the artist)

In the exhibition, which continues to April 25, two portraits show DeFreitas’ mother holding assemblages of flowers. More than bouquets, these emerge from her mouth or wrap over her shoulder and neck, engulfing her body or emerging from it. The flowers are all associated with the Virgin Mary. 

With On Pincushions and Lace, the flowers connect Mary with textiles, such as Our Lady’s thimbles (bluebells), while in On Larkspurs and Sorrows flowers like Mary’s tears (larkspur) and Our Lady’s tears (lily of the valley) link Mary with sorrow. The connection between women and labour – through textile work, but also through caring – is not immediate for those unfamiliar with floral nomenclature. Nonetheless, the portraits convey both strength and vulnerability. 

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Erika DeFreitas, “she remains monumentally self-contained (diptych no. 2),” 2020, digital inkjet print, 12” x 18” each (courtesy the artist)

DeFreitas, who was on the long list for the 2017 Sobey Art Award, also looks to redress art history in this, her first solo show in British Columbia. In she remains monumentally self-contained, mother and daughter team up again to mimic poses from art history, such as Michelangelo’s Pietà. 

Each pose is shown twice, and in the sequels, a white blanket they crocheted together conceals them. The drape refers to the protective covering of public monuments, but also erases identity. 

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Erika DeFreitas, “Everything repeats itself but all this has never ever happened before,” 2019, digital inkjet print, 86” x 44” (courtesy the artist)

In several small collage pieces, DeFreitas isolates women’s hands from historical images by cutting out or erasing the surrounding imagery. Whether it is crochet, stones wrapped with hair, or hands as a repeated motif, the references to women’s labour are ever-present. The labour of making or caring is contrasted with erasure, absence or invisibility. 

DeFreitas’ intention is to render visible through exaggeration the lack of visibility in art history for women of colour. But embedded within this collection of work is a strong familial bond that exists outside of language. Much of the work offers a dual reading, and through this ambivalence, she shows there is fragility in strength and vice versa. ■  

Erika DeFreitas: close magic at the Art Gallery at Evergreen, Coquitlam, B.C., from Feb. 13 to April 25, 2021. It is part of the selected exhibition program at this year's Capture Photography Festival.

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