Untold Stories I Once Wished Lost by Anna Williams will open October 14th, with a vernissage from 5:30 --7:30 pm. An artist tour will also happen on Nov 7th 2pm and 3pm.
For women and nature alike, physical and psychological borders define our reality. The borders between feminine and unfeminine, human and animal, tameness and wildness, savage and civilized – rules about what is natural and what isn’t – govern women’s lives. In this exhibition, I engage with what is considered appropriate female behavior as I explore female identities, and what we have lost in our passage from nature to culture. Through print, sculpture, and installation, I investigate how family history, identity, and mythologies of womanhood can intersect to offer alternative definitions of what it means to be female. From constellations to continents, language and literature, the foundations of Western culture are steeped in Greek mythology. For over two millennia, male writers from Homer to Hesiod, Ovid to Milton, have been rewriting and recycling these epic narratives. In doing so, they edited our cultural history with a focus on male narratives, while critically constricting the construction of femaleness. As a result, there exists a familiarity with the wrath of Achilles, and the might of Hercules that far surpasses any knowledge of Atalanta’s sharp arrow and swift feet, Philomela’s ingenuity, and Thetis’ wild resistance. In my new work, I take this complex tapestry of mythology and nuanced narratives, and pull new threads – new truths, stories and characters - to the fore, to be interwoven with my personal history of vulnerability, exclusion, shame, mental disorder, strength, and resilience. Through these pieces I investigate contemporary shared cultural traumas and myths, while provoking a new, inclusive iconography of empowered female heroines, and shifting the borders of what is considered appropriate female behavior.
City Hall Art Gallery
110 Laurier Ave West
Gallery Hours
Monday to Friday: 9 am to 5 pm
Proof of Vaccination Required to attend gallery events
