Longevity or a Lack Thereof highlights the dynamic and experimental nature of contemporary drawing. In addition to works on paper, the exhibition incorporates a range of unconventional materials and strategies from other artistic realms including sculpture, performance, textile and installation. These rigorous and exploratory practices help expand drawing from its traditionally preparatory or mimetic function into larger conversations about duration, documentation, collaboration and identity.
Francisco-Fernando Granados (Toronto) and collaborators Anthea Black and Thea Yabut (Toronto/San Francisco, Montreal) employ the performative potential of drawing to comment on identity politics and open up spaces for alternative narratives. Derek Liddington and Meghan Price (both Toronto) use tracing methods to document moments in time and space, using the materiality of their supports to construct ethereal, yet monumental, wall works. From memory, Alex Morrison (Victoria) drafts a series of homes he’s lived in directly on the gallery wall. Here, the drawn line becomes a temporary personal archive, and a tool for challenging notions of consumerism and domesticity.
