november 2025
Curators: Chloe Majenta & Mariana Jiménez Arango of The Pit Periodical
Artists: Alejandra Zamudio, Barbara Ottevaere, Chris Shubat, Colleen Alcorn, Daphne Faye Boxill, Evalena Puddifoot, Gabor Bata, Hannah Ferguson, Hanorah, Jeremy Desbiens, Jules Chanvillard, Laura Mota-Juang, Médéric Corbin, Mbuto Tembo, Océane Buxton, Reid Urchison, Robbie Munro, Sadie Quinn, and xavier ludd.
Dates: November 27 to 30, 2025 (vernissage Thursday Nov 27)
Venue: L’Espace Parallèle, 10 av des Pins O, Montreal QC
Exhibition text
“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 223.
A viscous red takes over. It is the final stage of the communication breakdown of the Anthropocene- the tower crumbles, voices crescendo into white noise, and man sees only beast in his neighbor.
You hit the road.
Eventually, you settle for the end of the world as a rest stop; it is marked by an effigy of Christ with shaded eyes. Barefoot, you decide to take a walk to clear your head from the Pandæmonium you have witnessed, and in the barrenness, nearly step into a sign of life- a pair of eggs burrowed in the grass. What shall you do with these archaic vessels of the liminal space between life and death? Perhaps some sort of bioplastic architecture, or just call it a truce; and let them hatch into angels.
How does one build a different world? A nail gun, a hammer; tools are used both for construction and destruction- conceivably, the latter is also a sort of making. The kiss of death, clipped wings are framed by the same nails that crucify, figures are shredded, re-arranged, superimposed. What was profane is now holy.
As you wander further, you encounter a lone living room setting- an armchair and a coffee table filled to the brim with sketchbooks that breathe. As you flip through them, a mist envelops you, then cradles in the palm of your hand in the form of a monstrous creature seeking the alchemical warmth of a tender touch. This is the mystery of a pageless book, the surreality of the pistil.
A façade is a revelation, and the uncanny a sign of fecundity. Now is the time for glamour spells, for dreams, masquerades, for trickeries and controversy.
At its core, The Pit is an investigation into the ways in which people are devoted to their craft and a gathering of minds and voices, on the page and in the flesh. Inspired by the strange and beautiful talents that we’ve been honoured to publish, we felt called to bring together a selection of previous Pit contributors in a group show. This exhibition celebrates the incredible labour that is poured from the hearts of Montreal’s finest minds and alchemised into works of art that incisively illustrate the space and time we are occupying and yet imagine a different world. Come closer to the candor of the chandelier!
BIO
Alejandra Zamudio is a Colombian visual artist based in Montreal. During the past years, she's been expanding her drawing practice towards fibers and installation work. Zamudio received a BFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University (2019). Since 2022, her work has been featured in The Art Volt Collection (MTL, QC). Her art has been exhibited at The FOFA gallery (MTL, QC), The McClure gallery (MTL, QC), SKOL (MTL, QC), and Sagamie (AL, QC), among others. She has participated in several artist residencies, including Casa Taller el Boga (Mompox, COL) and ARTCH X NYC CRITCLUB ( NYC, USA). Her work is part of private collections.
STATEMENT
Alejandra Zamudio's artwork stems from a committed journaling practice that keeps her engaged with the abundance that can be found in the mundane. The content of these journals populate her large scale drawings, guide her material explorations as well as nourish her installation projects. Recent works on paper and on textile seek to capture the haunting and ephemeral nature of dreams and of love.
Zamudio is fascinated by the process of image making, which is deeply linked with repetition and with the distinct nature of each material used. Drawing is the vestige of an action, the expression of an impulse to name and to unveil: a way of thinking out loud. Material explorations, on the other hand, with dyes, colored pencils, and sewing imbue her imagery with formal and symbolic depth.
Zamudio blends personal experience with the visual vocabulary of children's books and catholic iconography. The mother- daughter bond, the animals that capture her attention, the relationships that haunt her, and the angels that accompany her, constantly appear in the work.
Over the past year, Zamudio has created textile pieces as scenery for outdoor concerts. The textiles have become enriched by the music and by the locations they've been presented in. She hopes to continue expanding on her installation work and to further experiment with music and sound.
Barbara Ottevaere
BIO
Barbara Ottevaere est une artiste céramiste qui a complété un baccalauréat aux Beaux-Arts de l’Université Concordia en 2023. Ses œuvres ont été présentées lors d’expositions collectives à Montréal notamment à la galerie Fais-moi l’Art, à la galerie Jano Lapin, à la Galerie Erga, chez JMC Art Contemporain, et à la galerie Wishbone. Dans le cadre du festival d’art contemporain émergent ARTCH, elle a exposé une sélection de céramiques à la Place Ville Marie en octobre 2024. Depuis octobre 2025 elle est représentée par la galerie Wishbone. Ses pièces font partie de collections privées au Canada, en France, en Angleterre, et aux USA.
STATEMENT
L’artiste visuelle Barbara Ottevaere travaille principalement la céramique, tout en faisant des incursions fréquentes dans les territoire du papier, de la photographie et de la poésie. Nourrie par sa relation hypersensible au monde, elle considère son corpus comme un journal de bord et d’argile de ses émotions. Inscrits dans le figuratif, ses projets prennent leur source dans le vernaculaire, le souvenir, la rêverie. Dans un monde alarmé, saturé d’informations et d’images, ses pièces questionnent notre altérité, nos ambivalences, notre lien indissociable à la Nature et au Vivant. Elles témoignent de son aspiration à un monde autre, réécrit, harmonieux.
Sans doute l’acte de créer répond-il aussi au désir de laisser une trace, de faire mémoire. Fille de migrants, et migrante elle-même, les racines identitaires de Barbara Ottevaere lui paraissent peu profondes, son territoire lui semble davantage ancré dans l’imaginaire que dans une réalité géographique. Toujours un peu étrangère, toujours ‘celle qui part’, elle appréhende son effacement du récit familial. L’art vient alors redessiner les contours de son identité, une identité plurielle, qui loin de la dissoudre et de l’effacer, la constitue en tant qu’être singulier, riche de ses expériences.
Que ce soit en deux ou en trois dimensions, l’argile devient support de scènes, canevas d’instants de vie. Sur sa surface se dessine une histoire, une narration. Mélancolie et onirisme affleurent autant que tendresse et solitude. Entre vie rêvée et réalité, les céramiques de Barbara Ottevaere cristallisent sa présence au monde en devenant les archives pérennes de ses imaginaires.
Chris Shubat
BIO
My name is Chris Shubat. I am a 29 year old artist from Toronto, Canada. My life, from early adolescence, has been characterized by a continuous fascination with the pursuit of genuine expressive creativity, which I employ as a personal therapeutic tool to understand and bring to life a complex, intrapersonal landscape of strikingly elaborate imagery.
STATEMENT
Typically using acrylics and ink, through an airbrush, I render an internal psychological and emotional map, containing a lifetime of jubilation, novel mundanity, humour, and personal struggle therein. Themes of addiction and mental health interact directly with visions of liberatory light and clarity. Blurry, half remembered images mingle with the sharp and defined.
The three pieces I chose for The Pits “all that is solid melts into air” group show were all made primarily with liquid acrylic medium through an airbrush on cotton canvas. These three works came to mind when I first read the theme of the show and very much felt they drove home that narrative. Very often my practice manifests from some sort of difficulty in one or another and I’ve found this to be a therapeutic way to reflect on things. Harnessing a lot of these inner stresses as a tool rather than reflecting on them negatively. Turning harsh imagery into something beautiful to hold on to.
Colleen Alcorn
BIO
Colleen Alcorn (they/them) is a queer, non-binary sculptor and illustrator from rural Ontario, currently residing in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Primarily working with wood, metal and glass, Alcorn explores world building, collective queer insights and the tenderness that stems from navigating the trans experience. They completed a BFA with honours at the University of Guelph in 2024. Alcorn’s work has been shown at Boarding House Gallery (2022), Zavitz Gallery (2023, 2021), Necessary Arts (2021), and Uxbridge Studio Tour (2019). They have completed residencies at Ed Video (2022), 10C (2022) and received the Sculpture Award at the 55th Annual Juried Art Show (2023).
STATEMENT
My sculptures explore the complex journeys of non-binary and trans masculine individuals, particularly as we navigate the tension between our internal sense of self and the external expectations placed upon our bodies. Working primarily with wood, metal, fabric and glass I engage with materials that have been historically associated with hypermasculine & hyperfeminine industries, practices and techniques. Through the inspection of upbringing, identity, comfort, and shared queer experiences, my artwork reflects the tenderness and toughness that accompany these identities. I am interested in creating sculptures as an act of world-building and to reflect internal contrasts by intertwining seemingly opposing forces—delicate, intimate details with raw, industrial forms and materials.
Informed by a rural and religious upbringing, my process explores - and challenges - what it means “to be a man”, all while acknowledging the vast complexities, contrasts and issues that phrase and desire holds. Through the process of carving, woodworking, glass working and sewing, I blend traditionally gendered practices, materials and subject matter to understand social constructs of gender, and understand my own relationship to masculinity. Each work is a testament and a parallel to the integral moments of self-discovery and self-affirmation within the trans experience.
Daphne Faye Boxill
BIO
Daphne Boxill is a Toronto-based artist and writer whose work centers on transformation and self-reclamation. Through alternative photographic processes—particularly double exposure—she merges body and landscape to create images that challenge inherited narratives and explore new possibilities for selfhood. Her practice is driven by curiosity, play, and a commitment to reimagining the stories we tell about women's bodies and agency.
STATEMENT
Daphne Transforms is a photozine that reimagines the myth of Daphne and Apollo. In Ovid's telling, Daphne transforms into a laurel tree to escape Apollo's relentless pursuit—her metamorphosis a desperate act of self-preservation. In my retelling, transformation becomes something else entirely: not escape but return. Daphne transforms to reclaim her body, to root herself in the earth, to become more fully herself. Using double exposures and alternative photographic techniques, I layer body and landscape until they become inseparable. These images investigate the tension between memory and presence, vulnerability and resilience—the contradictions that live in all processes of becoming. By reworking this canonical myth, I challenge narratives that frame women's transformations solely as reactions to male violence. Instead, I offer transformation as an act of power: self-actualization on one's own terms.
Evalena Puddifoot
BIO
Evalena Puddifoot is a ceramic and textile sculptor interested in translating ephemeral states — such as dreams, meteorology, and fantasy — into touchable forms. Her work is frequently introduced through gifting and secret placement, inviting chance encounters with these slippery things through a shared (and often private) physical reality. She hopes to tease out and make accessible a feeling even close to those found in the presence of sacred relics, ancient tools, stone gargoyle roosting high on churches.
STATEMENT
There is a profound and contradictory tension that springs from yearning to touch what we have created. The desire to hold our stories, which has produced art and objects over millennia, seems mirrored in the pang of analogue nostalgia amidst digital technology missing its buttons and dials. Though we have bodies, we are hopeless meaning-makers, building worlds often less about what is objectively ‘real’ and more about the ephemera we place on top of them — stories, affects, desires. We itch to turn the real imaginary, and then to turn the imaginary real again. I am interested in this fickle yet profoundly enduring alchemy of touch and creation, particularly as applied to the ephemera of dreams, meteorology and fantasy.
My sculptural practice is about making it possible to touch these untouchable things – to translate physical materials into dreamstuff. I’ll often sculpt in the dark to find recognizable forms that are still shifting and inscrutable — like cloudgazing. These pieces in particular are endeared to that, made as deliberate studies of clouds and what might live there if we imagine them to. I wanted to create surreal, playful manifestations of a kind of ‘cloud world’ that’s captured my attention from around the edges of different children’s and fantasy media for many years, but which have never felt quite saturated enough in their medium (cloud) beyond providing the setting. I invite you to touch these sculptures freely.
Gabor Bata
BIO
Gabor Bata (b. 1994) is a Montreal-based artist. He is influenced by his experience with — and love of — film, animation, comics and design. He has been awarded grants like the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship in 2020 and the ARTCH Festival grant in 2022. In 2023, Bata completed his MFA in Painting & Drawing at Concordia University and followed it with his first solo show at Le Livart in Montreal that November. He has most recently exhibited work in the latest editions of Les Printemps du Mac and Foire Plurale in April 2025.
STATEMENT
In his drawings, Gabor Bata explores social alienation– and how it transforms us – through the visual language of cartooning. These works portray figures who have lost their humanity and have devolved into cartoons, where pleas for sincere connection are juxtaposed against grotesque, violent visages. In these compositions, a hypothetical world of all talkers and no listeners is shown. The characters attempt to communicate and connect with one another, but consistently fail to do so.
Despite them verging on caricature, however, Bata still hopes to evoke sincerity through the materiality. The heavily textured surface of The Field suggests this paradoxical attraction-repulsion dynamic. The works are drawn with thick, crudely mixed oil pastels, but the colours and forms are often seductive. These elements suggest depth and pathos to his characters and their world. They are still worth looking at and understanding, no matter how mutated and reprehensible they may be.
Hannah Ferguson
BIO
Hannah Ferguson (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer of Scottish heritage working in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Ferguson holds a BFA from Concordia University in Art History and Studio Art, with a minor in Film Studies (2022). She recently completed an internship at FOFA Gallery as the Assistant Technician in Sustainability, exploring the use of biomaterials for sustainable exhibition design. Her writing has been published by Needlebound (2025), The Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art (2025), The Pit (2024), In the Mood Magazine (2024), Offscreen (2023), Yiara Magazine (2022), and FOFA Gallery (2021). She has participated in residencies at Concordia’s Fine Arts Reading Room (2022), the Icelandic Textile Center (2022), Cyber Love Hotel / Things+Time (2023), and Artscape Gibraltar Point (2023).
STATEMENT
Hannah Ferguson (she/her) is an artist and writer of Scottish heritage working in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Her practice roves through weaving, print media, sound, performance, and sculptural bioplastics to explore spatial, material, and affective histories. Ferguson’s work is accumulative, often preoccupied with methodologies of collection and communication, and the gaps that appear in the midst of these processes. Her work considers how such gaps might propose slanted ways of knowing, and avenues towards rearrangement. Lately she has been exploring the histories and materialities of colloids (edible and synthetic).
Hanorah
BIO
Hanorah is a musician and visual artist based in Montreal. While her BFA was interrupted by a record deal signing and international touring, her visual art practice has remained in close relationship with her songwriting. The introspection in her visual art becomes embodied passion when she is on stage. Whether performing for crowds of 30,000 at Montreal Jazz Fest, or intimate acoustic concert/craft night events, she approaches her work with the simple ethos: everyone is creative. Her work has been featured on CBC, Earmilk, and CultMtl.
Jeremy Desbiens
STATEMENT
Following my formative years in art school, I slowly grew disheartened with art; not art itself, but
everything around it. To me, art and artists came with too much personality, and I started to lose touch with all the subplots behind the forms.
Je ne me soucis plus du fond duquel, ironiquement, je dois parler. J'ai dès lors commencé à chercher des manières de faire fondre les concepts, de les libérer, et de m'éviter toute justification. Mon travail figuratif circule autour de symbolismes assez simples, et mon travail abstrait, qui est parfois issu de sources figuratives et historiques, n'est autre qu'une déconstruction de l'image, une recherche de la couleur et de la forme à l'état gazeux.
Je ne veux plus expliquer mon travail, seulement le vivre. La création artistique demande beaucoup de courage et d'énergie, mais offre peu de résultats sinon les œuvres elles-mêmes. Une puissante et belle ingratitude. À travers mon travail, je tente de refléter une énergie latente, une organisation silencieuse de la forme qui symbolise à la fois le retrait du monde par l'artiste. Je m'isole dans la vie, mais n'existe pas à travers mon œuvre.
Jules Chanvillard
BIO
Born in 1997 in Grenoble, France, Jules Chanvillard is a visual artist based in Montreal. An obsessive fan of comic books and narrative arts, he studied graphic design and now works in the field specializing in cultural promotion. He moved to Nantes to study it, and quickly became immersed in the city’s boiling cultural and political atmosphere. He discovered zines in creative and militant circles. In 2020, he founded a small publishing house named Les éditions Utiles et agréables. There, he published his collective and solo photographic, silkscreening, archival exploration, and zine creation works.
STATEMENT
Nails & grief
At its core, art is how I connect with others. I can’t count the number of deep friendships I have built around my mixed media art practice. It also feeds relationally, as a large part of my artistic practice is in silkscreening co-ops, Riso spaces and my friends’garages.
These pieces are fed by loss, and more particularly, where to place love that remains after friends are gone, and the care, knowledge and joy to know are still there. In a very concrete way, the vitalist impulse to use matter against this void helps to tolerate that stillness and understand it.
The body of work revolves around the object of the nail, like that which frames a house or a coffin. Through various artistic media, it delves into fleeting emotions such as grief, fear, and hope. These fears, this relationship to illness and the flesh that betrays us, are explored through matter and gestures. In the manner of a Cronenbergian horror film, or like Sybille Rupert, all these transitional states are searched here in the intimacy of bodies and mental universes. The art of screen printing and traditional etching intertwine with these themes through recurring motifs on the body. This stubborn gesture is modified and mixed with painting, sculpture, and photography, leading to works at the crossroads of troubled effects and mediums.
This multidisciplinary, deliberately idiosyncratic corpus creates a diegesis in which a fragmented and liminal narrative can be guessed at, without ever fully revealing itself.
Laura Mota-Juang
BIO
Laura Mota-Juang is a Taiwanese-Brazilian shameless experimentalist from São Paulo and based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. She is the author of Light Spill (Block Party Press 2023), a chapbook inspired by Physics’ imagination. And co-author of friend/shapes friend/scapes (2024), a publication that uses photography and poetry to re-imagine the past and memory between friends. She is currently painting playful creatures on thrifted garments at Atelier No Fiction Projects, and directing her grandma for her first short film. @imnofiction online.
SATEMENT
Taken on film, developed with cyanotype and sun, shreded and weaved, the photographs of The shreds are for weaving are an ode to tending to tenderness.
The grain. The paper fiber. The chemicals for blue. In an all tactile process, I found a method to put myself under the state of attention. The women of the portraits have inspired me in different ways, from wisdom to playfulness and wonder, their intentionality is what I wanted to evoke when I spent several hours doing the sometimes wonky weaved pieces.
Médéric Corbin
BIO
Médéric Corbin is a visual artist based in Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal, working across painting, sculpture, and print media. He graduated with Great Distinction from Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and received the Yves-Gaucher Award, which recognizes outstanding academic achievement. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Édifice Grover and Galerie Perchée at La Canne (2025), the Centre d’exposition du Vieux Presbytère in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville (2023), and Galerie Hangar 7826 (2022). In 2025, he also took part in the Biennale internationale du lin de Portneuf and the Festival Hors-Service in Montreal. His practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts (2023) and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (2025).
STATEMENT
I paint, sculpt, and print to awaken our existential needs, particularly those to reflect and to situate ourselves within a logic greater than our individuality. I engage in a dialogue with my works to uncover their significance. I shape them repeatedly by multiplying or duplicating my imagery, which reveals itself to be something other than it appeared initially. This constant remaking reflects a world where intersections between ecstasies and anxieties feed, complement, and confront one another. I rely on this polysemy to blur my figurative works. I steer them toward abstraction, presenting pieces that invite both seeing and imagining. My work contains, occupies, and opens space, acting as a parenthesis, as a site of convergence and suspension. It invites an encounter with oneself and others, urging us to question our relationship to the world and to experience a shared vulnerability.
Mbuto Tembo
BIO
I was born in Maseru, Lesotho, and spent 8 formative years at an all girls british boarding school in South Africa, then spent the last 2 years of high school in Zimbabwe. Afterwards I moved to BC, Canada for university, where I earned my Bachelor of Science, double majoring in Biology & Psychology at University Of Victoria. After living there for 9 years and working for a non-profit health clinic for 3 years, I moved to Montréal to pursue a second bachelors degree, a Fine Arts degree majoring in Art History & Studio Arts, with a focus on Painting & Drawing.
STATEMENT
My artistic practice, specifically illustrated with this portion of the current series I am working on, is the interconnectedness & sacredness of rest, intimacy, rejuvenation, connection, solitude, freedom, specifically through my unique lens as this version of a black woman. A significant facet of my spiritual practice is my artistic practice, they are interconnected. It is no coincidence that in my home my altar, also my ancestral shrine, sits between my oil paintings; they bookmark, hug, contain my altar. This is also where I paint. This part is, and essentially my home in general, acts as a container, a cathedral where I feel directly connected to God; the Universe, My Ancestors; I feel in communion with Them here, and can come to them to practice & nurture gratitude & seek Their counsel & comfort.
To move through the painting process more smoothly I reserve the struggle of rendering in the drawing phase because that is where most of my artistic technical prowess lies. I can’t cut corners on the struggle with drawing, I revel in the arduousness, it satisfies my spirit, I feel directly connected to God-Universe-Ancestors-whomever bestowed my talents to me, while at the same time feeling also profoundly connected to the little sweet girl inside me who would escape through drawing whenever she could.
My bed being my current muse is what contains, harbours, envelops the sacredness of rest, intimacy, rejuvenation, connection, solitude, freedom: the banality & majesty of rest, the banality & majesty of my bed feels holy to me.
Océane Buxton
BIO
Océane Buxton is a visual artist specializing in video, photography, sound design and textile art. Her work focuses on celebrity mythology and the impact of visual media on our perception of reality. Originally from Québec City, she has called Montréal home since 2017. Currently, she is pursuing an M.A. in Visual Arts (research-creation) at UQAM. Her work has been exhibited by Joliette Art Museum, Ada X, AXENÉO07, as well as the web art platform Galerie Galerie. In 2021, fueled by her curiosity about the entertainment industry, she participated in the cooking reality TV show Un souper presque parfait.
STATEMENT
During my early teenage years, I became involved with several Internet communities. This led me to a three-year career as a child influencer for a questionable yet popular Youtube channel. Since then, I have developed a body of work that is highly influenced by my complex relationship with celebrity, web culture and self-representation. I mainly express my reflections and observations through video art, sound design, photography, performance and textile art. I am drawn to the aesthetic codes that have been applied during various centuries as a mean to represent "important figures" in religion, mythology, popular culture and visual art. I am fascinated by Hollywood lore, controversy and the human instinct to seek external validation that comes from existing in the collective imaginary. In my work, I craft autofictional narratives based on both my personal experiences and the omnipresent media that influences my worldview. I embody glamorous characters, sometimes dressed in costumes I create myself. My relationship with self-representation plays out like a subtle form of "drag," a dynamic between sincerity and performance. While my work may seem like a personal introspection on these themes, I am deeply interested in the way every individual exerts control over their own image in the visual representation of self.
Reid Urchison
BIO
Reid Urchison is an artist and writer living in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke. Their comics have been published in ReIssue, Open Word, Carte Blanche, The Pit, and elsewhere.
STATEMENT
Influenced by early conceptual art movements and by contemporary art comics, my work explores themes of memory, repetition, personal archives, and books as both objects and containers. Pieces often reference each other, building an internal logic across different formats. It is conceptual in nature and most often takes the form of comics, video, zines and other multiples.
Robbie Munro
BIO
Robert Munro is a Montreal-born painter with a background in film from Concordia University. Using traditional oil techniques, he develops works that confront the intersection of the unconscious and the uncanny, shaped by internet culture and contemporary media as a collective (un)consciousness. Through collaged imagery and cinematic lighting, his paintings depict human subjects in dreamlike, ambiguous spaces that blur the boundaries between the real and the virtual. Positioning himself as an observer, Munro aims to evoke emotional resonance rather than narrative clarity, inviting viewers to sense the psychological and relational tensions within his painted worlds.
STATEMENT
In the evolution of human experience, contemporary human life is becoming more and more virtual based, “paralyzed” by our computerized devices. Many individuals live their lives in a state of “in-between”, between presence and absence, or reconciliation and alienation. Because of this, the paintings I am currently producing symbolizes a kind of weirdness: an unconscious/disjointed state of being - a feeling of uncanniness due to the inability to discern what is real from what is virtual, like in dreams.
Dreams inspire me deeply: like the Internet, in dreams there are no boundaries of the physical world. They possess a balance of darkness and humor, often shaped by our subconscious and the flow of online information throughout the day. They mélange our experiences: collaging the online world and real experiences.
The danger is that this flow pulls us further and further away from the places we need to be, unaware of the spaces we physically inhabit. Both worlds share this passivity; we go along with what’s happening, barely questioning it. Over time, that passivity seeps into how we live. We stop paying attention to what’s around us. And that’s where things get unsettling.
Amidst looming environmental collapse and rapid technological change, this loss of attention to the natural world is deeply concerning. I aim to capture this precarious moment— a threshold where humanity teeters between transformation and oblivion. My paintings invite viewers to reflect on our collective experience and the fragile state of our connection to the real, both within and beyond ourselves.
Sadie Quinn
BIO
Sadie Quinn is a painter and researcher based in Montreal. Most recently, she has exhibited in Dreamscapes at Erga Gallery (Montreal) and La Foudre at Westlab+ Gallery (Bushwick, New York). Alongside her painting practice, Sadie is pursuing a Master’s degree as a media scholar at Carleton University. In this role, she spends a lot of time thinking about forest fires, photography, and anti-imperialism. In the summer of 2024, her research and aesthetic inquiries merged at the Romany Eveleigh Residency in Baie-Saint-Paul.
STATEMENT
Enamoured by the process of experimenting with colour and form, I have focused my studio work on figurative oil painting for the past several years. I create works through collaging sketches from memory and imagination, art historical references, archival research, and primary photography. Working alla prima, I prioritize immediacy, ensuring my brushwork and colour choices remain intuitive and lively. I explore relationships between sombre and electric hues, toggling between the embrace of naturalistic and mystical colour schemes.
With the tender guidance of esoteric frameworks, such as dream analysis and tarot, my process is practice-led and dictates how compositions and ideas are refined. My series Dreamscapes and Remnants (2022-23) is a particular example of this, where I explored early childhood memories alongside recent dreams to examine how my relationships to land and death developed. After sustained exploration, each painting ultimately distills the narratives into simple, tense moments that are both haunting and nostalgic
Currently, I am interested in collapsing the boundaries between intuitive studio work and theoretical research in environmental humanities and media studies. In 2024, parallel to my thesis, I began fusing imagery of ecological disasters with tarot symbolism to reimagine fire as both destruction and renewal. This ongoing body of work reflects on how, in the Anthropocene, “all that is solid melts into air”—be it deep-time decay warming our atmosphere, the simplicity of a photograph, or a horse made of two men. Like tarot, my paintings balance symbolism and openness, using the human form—through expressive gestures—to both observe and reveal.
xavier ludd
BIO
xavier ludd is an anti-artist based out of brooklyn, new york. they balance a tightrope between enthusiastic domesticity and aggressive rebellion while making work out of any medium they can get their hands on. xavier is currently cycling through cocktails of prescription medicines and failing to learn how to swim. you can find them on socials @transforattention or on their website at hidingfromgod.com
STATEMENT
i create autoethnographic artworks combining photography, residues of action, and found or altered objects in order to objectify aspects of human experience. utilizing religious symbolism and text, i portray the ritualistic experience of making as an exorcism of the experiential from the self. my work exists in the bend between sharing information and withholding it, the elbow of personal and universal experiences, and the crook of representation and reality.