Hazel Meyer is a Toronto-based artist whose work explores ideas of athleticism, camaraderie and the history of sports equipment and apparel. Muscle Panic is a multifaceted project that thwarts typical assumptions of athletic events by highlighting the creative and emotive dimensions of sport. The MacLaren presents the second iteration of Muscle Panic, which features a fourteen-foot basketball hoop and a clubhouse-like women’s locker room replete with handcrafted banners, cast-off equipment and discarded jerseys. A nod to the spectacle of gymnasium sport, the project proposes new relationships between artistic and athletic practices. Meyer will lead a performance at the opening reception, in which a rogue basketball team animates the gallery to run their drills.
Hazel Meyer was born in Ottawa. She obtained her MFA from OCAD University, Toronto (2010) and BFA from Concordia University, Montreal (2002). Her practice explores seemingly disparate yet overlapping preoccupations—athletics, feminism, the absurd, the body and textiles—using strategies such as scale, language, play and repetition. Recent exhibitions include those at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Scarborough; AKA Artist-Run Gallery, Saskatoon; Art Metropole, Toronto and Eastern Edge Gallery, St. John’s.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Toronto Arts Council, Cait McKinney and Sean Procyk.
