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Oakville Galleries features Cosima von Bonin and Sojourner Truth Parsons

Nolan Machan
Cosima von Bonin
Cosima von Bonin's Who's Exploiting Who in the Deep Sea? | Cosima von Bonin's

Oakville Galleries next two exhibits, Cosima von Bonin's Who's Exploiting Who in the Deep Sea? and the paintings of Sojourner Truth Parsons will be on display from March 26, 2017 to May 28, 2017.

Who's Exploiting Who in the Deep Sea? brings together a selection of works by influential Kenyan-born, Germany-based artist Cosima von Bonin. This exhibition, the artist's first in Canada, examines von Bonin's ongoing fascination with the ocean, a theme that is commonly evoked in her works but rarely made explicit.

The opposing forces of the sea—both a mysterious underworld and a site of sun-seeking vacationers—operate as a metaphor throughout much of von Bonin's practice, manifested here through a collection of works from the past ten years. Ranging from sculptures of creatures like crabs and sharks to a larger-than-life bikini, von Bonin's cast of characters present a host of contradictions. They are at once approachable and not quite what they seem.

This motley crew echoes von Bonin's own band of collaborators. Frequently working with friends and colleagues, von Bonin has long eschewed the authorial role of the artist, prioritizing delegation as readily as creation. Drawing on the expertise of musicians, performers and fellow artists, von Bonin's work mixes art history, popular culture and the absurd to offer up wry critiques of contemporary life and its many mysteries. Appropriately, the deep sea—where von Bonin's creatures venture—is its own universe, remote and little known to us.

Diviniti, Mary Messhausen, produzentin and Simone Junker will perform throughout the opening on March 26, 2017.

Cosima von Bonin: Who's Exploiting Who in the Deep Sea? is co-curated by SculptureCenter Curator Ruba Katrib and Glasgow International Director Sarah McCrory. The exhibition is organized by Glasgow International and SculptureCenter, New York.

painting by Sojourner Truth Parsons

With their canny palette and crude perspective, the paintings of Sojourner Truth Parsons readily dispense with distinctions between interior and exterior worlds. Rendering the atmospheric and emotive energies she encounters as lucidly as physical truths, the Canadian-born artist observes a broad affective terrain in her work, documenting the dizzy indulgences of glamour and money as gamely as the dark heat of shame.Holding Your Dog At Night brings together a series of canvases produced by Parsons since she relocated to Los Angeles in 2015. Whether detailing the city's infamous nightlife, its extraordinary sunlight or the economic disparities on which it is built, Parsons' works offer a kind of baroscopic depiction of the spaces and places she moves through, at once ingenuous and acerbic. Neither autobiographical nor narrative in form, these paintings instead nudge us toward the psychic life of the everyday, to the feelings, forms and fantasies—both saccharine and sinister—that structure our worlds.Sojourner Truth Parsons (b. 1984, Vancouver) is an artist of Black, Mi'kmaq and settler heritage. She received her BFA from NSCAD University in 2008. Her recent exhibitions include Tomorrow Gallery, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Galerie Sultana, Paris; and Foxy Production, New York (all 2016). Holding Your Dog At Night is Parsons' first solo museum presentation.Soujourner Truth Passions work will be exhibited at Centennial Gallery which is adjacent to the Oakville Public Libraries Central Branch, and  Cosima von Bonin sculptures will be exhibited at Gairloch Gardens Gallery.

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