Tracing Absence and Presence

Charmaine Lurch

March 2018

“We are always in flux, looking for that visible space where we are allowed to just be human.”

Curated by Ilse Gassinger, Charmaine Lurch’s thought-provoking show is an exploration of her interest in the inter-sections between nature and culture, art and science and Black experience.

Conceived as a multi-media installation, the show explores Black subjectivity through oversized wire bee sculptures and wire relief on canvas. Lurch utilizes the attributes of wild bees: their invisibility (as they go about their solitary business of foraging for food) and their hyper-visibility (when they ‘threaten’ our personal space). Working with light and shadow, the wire sculptures evoke both virtual invisibility, physical presence, and movement with landscape. This, in turn, engenders a nuanced conversation on how black subjects are seen and not seen, understood and misunderstood, in space and place, past, present and future.

The exhibit invites consideration of “who’s here?” in the Canadian landscape. Who is visible? Who is invisible? How do we encounter Black subjectivity? How do we engage stories of hyper-visibility and stories of erasure? How might we think about Lurch’s work with invisibility and hyper-visibility, nature and culture, space and place, the past, present and future, in this historic town at the doorstep of Black pioneer presence along the Durham Road? - Naomi Norquay

Charmaine Lurch is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist, educator and curator. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from York University, and diplomas in design and illustration from Sheridan College. In addition, she studied at The Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U) and The School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her work has been exhibited in a number of galleries including the Royal Ontario Museum, Nuit Blanche, the Art Gallery of Ontario, The University of British Columbia, and the National Gallery of Jamaica. Also notable is her work with Inner City Angels, an art education charity bringing innovative approaches and awareness around social justice and environmental issue to Toronto schools.
www.charmainelurch.ca/