_edited.jpg){kind=small}
LAURA MADERA
AFTERGLOW
NOVEMBER 20 - DECEMBER 21, 2014
OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 6 - 10 PM
Evans Contemporary is pleased to present Afterglow, an exhibition of new paintings by Peterborough artist Laura Madera.
Through her artwork, Madera subjectively investigates light and memory in relation to painting. Her work initiates with a question, and what follows is the result of negotiating, probing, and conversing within a process of making. For Madera this unpredictable shifting process of understanding can only be arrived at through a physical engagement with materials. The outcome she works towards, is a quality of openness in meaning - a painting that refracts thoughts to other moments.
Madera's large watercolour paintings engage the body with their encounter and creation. Materials are explored for their equivocal potentials - a pour is simultaneously a pool, stain, lake, puddle, and opening. The use of natural phenomena (water, gravity, light) are part of the subjective experience of making, and are valuable creative forces to reckon with - push water out of the way and it pushes right back. Images for Madera's paintings stem from direct experience and engagement with her image archive. Content is something previously seen, thought, felt, dreamed of, which is then re-constructed or re-imagined through her studio processes. Madera's desire for these images to become paintings develops over time, slowly - out of a need to explore the edges and dimensions of the subject - a way to grasp in paint the seemingly ungraspable.
Afterglow will be accompanied by a catalogue which includes an essay from the artist and educator, Martin Pearce.
LAURA MADERA
Laura Madera received her MFA from the University of Guelph and a BFA from Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, BC.
Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Nuit Blanche Gallery, Toronto, Zavitz Gallery in Guelph, Westwind Gallery, Gibsons, BC, and Atelier Gallery in Vancouver, BC.
Madera has been included in numerous group exhibitions including shows at Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto, Zavitz Gallery in Guelph, Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton, NY, The Burnaby Art Gallery, as well as Helen Pitt Gallery, and Douglas Udell Gallery in Vancouver.
She has received numerous awards and grants including an Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance Grant, St. Clair West Public Art Competition, Board of Graduate Studies Research Scholarship (BGSRS), Visual Arts Development Award (VADA) through the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery and the Vancouver Foundation, and the Millennium Scholarship Award. She has been included in the Magenta Foundation's publication, Carte Blanche Vo. 2: Painting, and has been a resident at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Laura Madera's work is held in private collections across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Born in Toronto, Madera currently lives and works in Peterborough, ON.
EVANS CONTEMPORARY
Evans Contemporary is dedicated to the presentation of creative projects by national and international contemporary artists. Located in Peterborough, Ontario, the privately owned and funded gallery exhibits work by emerging, established, and unknown artists of all ages, as well as work from the gallery's private collection. Situated on the ground floor of a 1907 Edwardian house, the gallery's aim is to launch unique exhibitions in an intimate, salon style setting and allow artists to present new works and projects that transcend the trends of the commercial visual art market.
EVANS CONTEMPORARY
302 PEARL AVE.
PETERBOROUGH, ON
K9H 5G5
705 874 6932
HOURS: WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY 5PM - 8PM
PAOLO FORTIN - GALLERY COORDINATOR
LAUREN TREGENZA - RESEARCH FELLOW