PLAYTHINGS
October 23rd - 30th, 2022 at the 100% Silk Gallery.
playthings is a solo exhibition that features an array of mixed-media installation-based pieces, often using a combination of oil painting, soft-sculpture, and both hand-sewn and machine-stitched elements. Each piece of fabric used in “playthings” is sourced from found or given materials, such as: Their grandmother’s quilt, velvet and silk scraps from their parents’ wedding, shirts given from friends, trimmings from a discarded baby blanket, and a mixture of found blankets, sheets, pillowcases and embroidery thread.
playthings acts as a memory bank to reflect on the vulnerability and innocence of childlike imagination, while visiting the feeling of fear and discomfort of eventually being forgotten. The viewer is welcomed by each work, whether it’s the feeling of being embraced by a web of quilts, or closing up to an intimate hand-made toy, and acts to engage in a form of worldbuilding or spacemaking. This, alongside the ambiguous relationship of the figures depicted in the painted aspects, Powell is actively exploring the intimate, personal labour involved in this form of worldbuilding. Using the concept of care as a symbolic, revolutionary act, playthings criticizes the normalities – the fear and the discomfort – of living in heteronormative societies.
Made with support from the Canada Council for the Arts
Documentation by Mariah Hamilton
