Carl Stewart, càrn - detail
THRESHOLDS: Sam Loewen, Christos Pantieras, and Carl Stewart
January 26 to April 14, 2023
Opening: Thursday, January 26, 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Access is limited to the Laurier Avenue entrance.
Artists’ tour: Sunday, February 12, 2 pm
Free admission. Presented in English.
This exhibition brings together artists offering different generational perspectives on queer politics. What connects these distinct artistic practices is a common critique of pervasive heteronormative structures that aim to preserve traditional social values and render queer lives silent. The artists simultaneously caution against the dangerous effects of “homonormativity,” a term which suggests the assimilation and erasure of queer thought in exchange for 2SLGBTQ+ representation, recognition, and inclusion. Notably, the works on display suggest the urgency of foregrounding diverse, intersectional voices in queer political discourse. In addition, exploring themes of social acceptability and sexual freedom, Loewen, Pantieras, and Stewart address the question of erotic attraction that lies at the heart of queer community-building. The viewer is thus invited to contemplate definitions of queerness that stray from the capture of normative life. Yet the underlying question remains: What does it mean to reimagine community against the backdrop of a digital pre-post-pandemic society? Connecting the weight of history to possibilities of the future, Thresholds articulates modes of queer desire that center on pleasure, care, and resilience.
- Excerpt by Adam Barbu
Carl Stewart, clò mòr - detail
Carl Stewart is a weaver living and working in Ottawa. For more than thirty years his socially and politically engaged and enraged textiles have celebrated, memorialized, documented and commemorated the intimate, the fabulous, the egregious and the tragic. He has received professional grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa. His work hangs in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, the City of Ottawa Art Collection and the Permanent Collection of the Ottawa Art Gallery.
Sam Loewen is a queer, interdisciplinary artist and creative designer living in Ottawa. Loewen earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Lethbridge and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa. His artistic practice explores codification methods within Western culture to discuss queer ‘masculine’ identities through various mixed media and creative outputs.
Christos Pantieras works in sculpture, installation, and mixed media to explore themes of communication, relationships, and personal connections. Select exhibitions at the following galleries include: The Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa), The ArQuives (Toronto), Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre (Kingston), CIRCA Art Actuel (Montreal), and Artcite Inc. (Windsor). He has received professional grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa, and some of his work is included in the City of Ottawa Art Collection and the Permanent Collection of the Ottawa Art Gallery. Pantieras was shortlisted for the Ottawa Arts Council Mid-Career Award (2019) and was the Artist-in-Residence for the Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum (2022).
