Je-an Cedric Cruz | Staff Writer
Featured image courtesy of Casted Exhibit/AGYU
The Eleanor Art Gallery of York has recently opened a group exhibition for Winter 2020 featuring Casted: An Exhibition in Bronze that was done by Esther Kim, Rebecca Garcia Escheverria, Kristen Elizabeth Donoghue-Stanford, and Allison Helen Garrity.
Bronze is a historically male-associated material that the four artists have showcased in the gallery. They tried to explore the medium’s convention in order to utilize it towards their personal artistic practices. In addition, they also challenged the relatedness of the material to the creation and process.
“My work is centred around making sculptures that reflect myself as a female artist creating wearable pieces in a male dominated field. I intend on blurring the lines of gender stereotypes and bringing back childhood playfulness with my pieces,” says Garrity.
Further, the exploration with regards to the medium, the themes are crossed and distanced with one another. The significance of bronze and its impact on object and permanence are opened between the works of the four artists. Their choice to make works of art using bronze as a medium means that the artists subject themselves for representation towards monumentality of self and immortalization.
“If you are planning to exhibit your work, try planning a group exhibition with friends or other artists. Making connections and learning from other people is a great way to put yourself out into the art scene and learning how to curate a gallery to suit your pieces. The world will always need artists, they really keep society in check with criticizing and asking questions. During my time as an artist, I have met many other talented, knowledgeable artists who are constantly pushing the boundaries of art and philosophy, the future of visual arts definitely looks promising,” explains Garrity.
The artists invite the viewers to cast their opinions and inferences of their own towards the varying works of art exhibited in the gallery that resonate in representation of body, memory, empowerment, and the self of artists.
Garrity is a fourth-year visual arts (studio) student at York. Her work is focused around different materials and processes in foundry, metal, and patterning works. She explores her desire for playfulness and that she invites ideas that are rooted in adulthood in which the terms gender, life, and time are dissociated. The construction of her thoughts in the physical universe ignites the concrete and abstract parts of her.
The exhibition is open from January 20 to February 1, 2020.
