A Hairpin Turn is like a Plot Twist
Katharina Cameron, Cadence Planthara, and Ekow Stone.
August 1- September 6, 2020
@
Pumice Raft
Toronto
The works on display in this exhibition illustrate a shared sensibility, or sensitivity, to a mental and spatial drift and its capacity to enhance a relationship to space, place, and land. The result is a proposition; a view into a way of being and living that embraces multiplicity and strives for wholeness.
Katharina Cameron presents a series of drawings that were made during a short term residency in Toronto. Born in Nürnberg Germany, Cameron spent time exploring Toronto and used the typography of street-level signage as the basis for her works on paper. NO FRILLS, BULK BARN, and VALUE VILLAGE, become a palimpsestuous base to be consumed and overgrown by layers of natural forms, hearts, and flowers that not only become a type of experiential narration but also a trace of the city as a tangled garden. Acting as both conduit and content, these works articulate the feeling of schwindeln, a German word that encompasses feelings of dizziness, defying the linearity of time, and being dislodged from reality.
Cadence Planthara’s paintings and sculptures appear at first as pure abstraction of form and color. However, through an emerging guration, Planthara’s work positions itself as relational not representational. Conducive to prolonged viewing, the gestural and iconic forms in Planthara’s paintings build a vocabulary for the viewer that does not strive for objectivity but rather glimpses an array of emotional states that propose an ethics of being. A small pearl nestled into the wall sits at the height of an outstretched arm above the head—this variance in scale from paintings to sculpture deepens the relationship between works and the body. Finally, the “misc img” books (2017-2020) illustrate Planthara's veracious and routine practice of photography that acts as a notebook or diary as well as a type of image index for concepts and ideas that may later manifest in painted or sculpted works.
Ekow Stone employs a stippling technique to works on paper that use the archetypal figures of the hunter and warrior in order to recall a before now where divinity and ecology are intimately intertwined. These works create an entry point to alternate worlds of mythology while simultaneously, and quite pertinently, calling for sustainability through the protection and stewardship of our own land. A history of labour and relations are visible in Stone’s sculptural pyrography works done on everyday objects. A warped cutting board and used chair are burned with symbols and scenes of a thriving communion between people and the earth with such intention that it feels as though Stone himself brought these objects back as proof of the existence of the very world he is creating.
Cadence Planthara, untitled (moon painting), 2020. Acrylic, stonehenge paper, board, 18 x 15.9 x 1.8 inches
Cadence Planthara, untitled (flower self painting), 2020. Acrylic, water-based metallic paint on board 18 x 16 x 1.75 inches
Ekow Stone, Warrior Hunter, 2019. Ink on paper, 10.4 x 13.3 x 1.6 inches
Ekow Stone, Hunter Warrior, 2019. Ink on paper, 10.4 x 13.3 x 1.6 inches
Cadence Planthara, untitled (serpent egg vase), 2020. Stoneware, glaze, 21 x 6 x 7.5 inches
Ekow Stone, Cutting Board I, 2020. Top and bottom view. Pyrography on used wooden cutting board, 11.8 x 17.8 x 1 inches
Cadence Planthara, untitled (wavy frame painting), 2017-2020. Acrylic, coloured pencil on board, 11.9 x 15.9 x 1.6 inches
Ekow Stone, Chair I, 2020. Pyrography on wooden chair, 18 x 17 x 35 inches
Katharina Cameron, Untitled no.4, 2020. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 8.6 x 10.9 x 1.6 inches
Katharina Cameron, Untitled no.3, 2020. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 8.6 x 10.9 x 1.6 inches
Katharina Cameron, Untitled no.2, 2020. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 8.6 x 10.9 x 1.6 inches
Katharina Cameron, Untitled no.1, 2020. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 8.6 x 10.9 x 1.6 inches
Ekow Stone, A Constellation In Communion, artist zine. Read here