Marsh\u2019s own body appears in a legion of handprints that punctuate the gypsum cement disks suspended within her ten-foot-tall steel archway wastelanders<\/em>. These tangled clusters of positive and negative relief provide just enough mass to define a structure, while denying any real confidence of form. Somehow, despite its grandeur, this monumental work refuses to occupy any space at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The body, visible not only in form but thematically, is most present in the energy of the artists\u2019 labour. Thea Yabut pastes and pinches paper pulp into relief sculptures, forms graphite and pencil shavings into palm-sized objects, and draws spine-like daisy chains directly on walls. Her work clings to the gallery\u2019s architecture, softening its harsh flat\u00adness and sharp corners. Chloe Seibert\u2019s messy mural of paint and plaster\u200a\u2014\u200aalso applied by hand directly to the wall\u200a\u2014\u200aforms an abstract expression of her body\u2019s capacity to reach, bend, and twist. Her brazen markings culminate in a crude portrait that reads like a retaliation against the historically male tradition of action painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a decidedly more refined approach, but no less bodily in its expression, Beth Stuart endows the gallery with a velvety Venetian plaster second-skin. Although her work can be read as a celebration of surface, it also reaches far beyond, by paying close attention to the building\u2019s switch plates and sockets. Easy to overlook\u200a\u2014\u200aand therefore even more affecting\u200a\u2014\u200athese hand-worked zones of non-space act as reminders of the tangled inner workings behind the walls. With a similarly humanizing effect, Laurie Kang\u2019s roughly stitched aluminum Screen<\/em> acts as a tender shield for the gallery\u2019s ceiling fixtures. Doubling as a sling for a small handful of cast aluminum peach pits, this work further points towards the interior. Even further inside, and much more visceral, is Worm<\/em>. Tucked away in a plastic bucket and partially submerged in its own juices, this deep crimson glistening mass reads as demonstrative evidence of what a woman is meant to keep inside. Initially repulsed, we are quickly drawn to it, challenged to view the grotesque as a thing of fascination, even beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such a formidable mess\u200a\u2014\u200aan unapologetic display of female energy\u200a\u2014\u200ais present in all the work. At their most vulnerable, these works are unafraid. Like Aline Bouvy\u2019s Jesmonite mongrel dogs, or the gaping mouths of Mindy Rose Schwartz\u2019s cast bronze baby birds, vulnerability is offered up as an antiphon to traditional perspectives on strength. Much of the work is removable only through its own destruction. Much of the work had to undergo forms of destruction in order to be made. There is nothing here that does not unabashedly claim a space for itself, while simultaneously allowing space for every other body around it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Cole<\/strong>, Toronto![\"Laurie_Kang_Worm\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/92_CR10_Bowron_Laurie_Kang_Worm-1-scaled.jpg\")
Worm<\/em>, 2017.
Photo : courtesy of the artist
and Cooper Cole, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
September 16\u200a\u2014\u200aOctober 21, 2017<\/br>","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":155790,"template":"","categories":[],"numeros":[6576],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[],"artistes":[7984,1632],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-156228","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","numeros-92-democracy","artistes-jenine-marsh","artistes-laurie-kang"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/156228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=156228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}