Faculty of Education visual artists, Bennett De Medeiros and Dienna Howe and BFA visual artist Grayson King, showcased their work in Transitional Traces, an art exhibition held at the Special Projects Gallery in the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Centre earlier this September.
New artist(s) statement about the show:
Transitional Traces was a group art exhibition located at the Special Projects Gallery within the Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts building. The show featured artists Bennett De Medeiros (Year 1, BEd), Diena Howe (Year 1, BEd), and Grayson King (Year 4, BFA). Each artist explored how traces can be identified within the physical environment or emotional states.
These artworks represented shadows, frottage drawings, paleoart, industrial landscapes, printmaking, and representations of the human form.
Traces in the environment represent shifts of time by erosion or human intervention; they provide a snapshot of time through mark making and space.
For example, one artwork by Bennett De Medeiros focuses on familiar paths the artist traversed during their childhood. These parks and spaces hold memory not only through lived experiences but the physical textures above, around, or below. Frottage is a form of documentation to recollect and trace back to all the environmental influences which shape a surface.
The paleoart in the exhibition also traces back through deep time before human existence or disturbance. Sometimes environmental traces only exist through a short period of time or require a specific list of circumstances to appear, such as through Grayson King’s shadow depictions. A form of trace which casts a subject’s shape onto a surface, a projection that is able to appear and transform shape over time. Similarly, these shadows can invoke a specific memory or time to a viewer’s own interpretation.
Finally, human presence is a major theme within the exhibition as some artworks represent how human activity is lively through emotional events and the traces of these experiences which influence personal feelings. In contrast, what happens when human representation is taken away from infrastructure? For example, Diena Howe’s work showcases familiar industrial spaces which are contrasted with little human presence, providing a colder and quiet atmosphere, but the viewer can understand that these spaces are the traces left by mankind.
Traces are tangible but also abstract concepts, the artists in this exhibition encourage the viewer to look for these traces where they go. In the end, remember these traces are ever-changing but always present.
About The Goldfarb Gallery
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University is a socially minded not-for-profit contemporary art gallery that is a space for the creation and appreciation of art and culture. It is a supported Unit of York University within the President’s Division. We are externally funded as a public art gallery through the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, local and international foundations, embassies, and our membership who support all of our programs.
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