Ignite Gallery Sculpture Installation Award  Exhibition

_{Image: Deanna Gene Self-Inventory}

May 1 - August 16, 2024

Selected through a call for submissions, the Ignite Gallery Sculpture Installation Award exhibition highlights works chosen for their grand contemporary scale and exemplary representations of installation. In its fourth year, the Ignite Gallery SCIN Award continues to showcase outstanding talents, and is pleased to present the recipients: Marina Diolaiti, Deanna Gene, Lauren Porter, and Caro Simon

Marina Diolaiti  
You’ve become a monument.
Will the self feel its awareness more severely through these horizontal explorations of monuments?
Will I feel its awareness more severely through these horizontal explorations of monuments?
Beautiful delicate thing it seems you’ve reached objecthood.

Deanna Gene
In an exploration of the human quest to decipher the unknown, this work delves into the complexities of navigating cultural hybridity and identity through material artistry. As an individual often perceived as racially ambiguous, I attempt to unravel the densities of heritage and sense of belonging while also offloading the burden of having to explain my existence to others. There emerges a challenge in learning to appreciate without the full comprehension of its makeup.

Crafted from discarded materials, this nest embodies hybridity, embracing diverse heritage. Each element carries its own narrative, woven together to symbolize environmental and social responsibility. Strategic portals invite reflection on identity, drawing from Édouard Glissant's theory of opacity. My art challenges conventional perspectives, celebrating multiculturalism and grappling with notions of belonging. 
 

Lauren Porter  
The vanishing point, where entities appear to dissolve, guides exploration through converging timelines. The works reveal illusions of appearance and disappearance through a viewer’s active exploration. Nothing is truly insoluble; all remains suspended in time, awaiting revelation. Reflection reaffirms that existence endures even below perception’s limits. Please reciprocate.
 

Caro Simon
Caro Simon is an interdisciplinary artist from Belgium/Luxembourg living and practising in T’karonto (Toronto). She primarily works in sculpture/installation, poetry, printmaking and analog photography. Drawing from minimalist purposelessness and abstraction, her work examines the distanced modes of interactions between bodies and disregarded urban infrastructure as well as the anti-aesthetic in the context of post-industrial environments.