Alex Chowaniec | A Ritual of Flowers

Alex Chowaniec | A Ritual of Flowers

October 26 – November 9

Vernissage: Saturday October 26 @ 3 – 5 pm with an artist talk at 3:30 pm

WALL SPACE GALLERY is proud to present Alex Chowaniec’s solo exhibition of oil paintings “A Ritual of Flowers”. In this series of nine impasto paintings Chowaniec explores still life as a chronicle of the rituals of daily life within motherhood; celebrating monthly milestones adaptation and the creation of space for daily gratitude. Her painted bouquets and curio cabinets become vessels for what is fleeting.

After the birth of her daughter Chowaniec began gathering flowers every month on the anniversary of her birth as a celebration of her good health; a small gesture in marking her immense gratitude for her life and continued well-being. In “Flowers for Ursula (Holding Hands Through Space and Time)” Chowaniec presents us with swirling forms of flowers emerging from lavish swaths of oil paint cascading from a fuschia vase. A ceramic or stuffed animal of a feline sits beneath gazing upwards at the abundance above with large bubbly blue eyes. Within those eyes is an innocence mirrored in the whipping-cream texture of its body pliable and soft.

Every inch of Chowaniec’s canvases sway with movement and transformation. Repeated forms such as a figure of a mother bear and her cub bones feathers and other treasures one might scavenge along a trail appear across various canvases marking transitions of time and change. Chowaniec includes half-drunk coffee cups bananas and grocery packaging in her documentation of her ritual items that ground us in the ordinariness of everyday life.

Capturing these moments through impasto painting welcomes the beauty in imperfection and chaos. She candidly points us towards considering not only daily passages of time and growth but how the objects we house our emotions in can be markers of what is important in life.

Alex Chowaniec (New York/Ottawa) – is a Canadian artist and Co Founder of Chowaniec Projects visualizing climate action through art. Chowaniec has exhibited internationally including at La MaMa in New York City; The Barbican Centre London; Olga Korper Gallery Art Toronto Galerie d’Art Jean-Claude Bergeron and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Canada; Knockdown Center National Academy of Design Georges Bergès Gallery Ortega y Gasset Projects lorimoto Grace Exhibition Space SPRING/BREAK and Kleinert/James Center for the Arts in New York; Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee WI; and SOMArts Cultural Center and The Lab in San Francisco. Chowaniec holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute graduating with the Irene Pijoan Memorial Painting Award and Joan Mitchell Foundation Headlands Centre for the Arts and SECA Award (SFMOMA) nominations. She received her BFA Honors from Queen’s University in Canada.

We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery for the vernissage on Saturday Oct 26 @ 3 - 5 pm the artist will be in attendance and giving an artist talk at 3:30 pm.

613.729.0003 [email protected]

1090 Bank St Ottawa ON K1S 3X5

Host or Publisher Wall Space Gallery + Framing