Carol Wainio, Tapestry, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 91,4 x 122 cm, collection of M. Henry Sykes and Mme Molly Naber-Sykes, Calgary. Courtesy of TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary.
Carol Wainio
The Book
10 January – 22 February 2014
at Galerie de l’UQAM
Montréal
Opening reception: Thursday 9 January 2014, 17h30
Curated by Diana Nemiroff
Organized and circulated by Carleton University Art Gallery in Ottawa, the exhibition, which was presented in five locations across Canada, will be ending its tour in Montreal. Carol Wainio is specifically interested in the narrative power of images. In this exhibition, she uses illustrated books and fairy tales imagery references to create a dialogue with the current socio-political context. The project, curated by Diana Nemiroff, brings together a body of 15 works made between 2002 and 2010. The artist will be present at the opening.
The Book
Illustrated books, which seek to educate their readers through images and ideas about the world, are the focal point for Ottawa painter Carol Wainio’s recent reflections on the changing and contradictory role of representation. Many of Wainio’s paintings evoke a mood of disenchantment and loss rather than wonder. In them, books have become crumbling monuments, provisional structures in a landscape littered with empty shopping bags and cheap, discarded shoes. Mass production replaces scarcity and commercial exchange but, in spite of this transformation, poverty remains ubiquitous. The subjects of the traditional European folktale — poverty and excess, high culture and low, desire and consumption, camouflage and forms of recognition or status through representation or dress — become commentaries on today’s global consumerist society and its inequities [read the full text here]
Galerie de l’UQAM
Université du Québec à Montréal
1400 Rue Berri
Pavillion Judith-Jasmin, Room J-R120
Montréal, QC, H2L 2C4
Canada
galerie.uqam.ca
Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday: 12h00 – 18h00
Free admission
Carol Wainio, Industrial Fairy Tale, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 182,9 x 304,8 cm. Collection of the artist.
Carol Wainio, Puss in Boots Copies, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 137,2 x 183 cm. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of TrepanierBaer, Calgary