Chris Reid: I like to believe I am telling the truth

NEW EXHIBITION!

Chris Reid
I like to believe I am telling the truth
February 9 – April 14, 2012

Opening reception at Gallery 1C03: Thursday, February 9, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Artist talk followed by opening reception at Oseredok (184 Alexander Avenue East): Thursday, February 9 at 7:00 p.m.

Gallery 1C03 & Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre are pleased to co-present I like to believe I am telling the truth, a double-sited solo exhibition of new and recent work by Manitoba artist Chris Reid. The exhibition includes large-scale pastel drawings, quirky re-interpretations of Ukrainian Easter eggs and multi-media sculptural installations that incorporate recycled and found objects. Through these diverse media, Reid invents lush visual narratives containing a sundry cast of characters – from folkloric symbols of her Ukrainian heritage and her husband’s African heritage such as Baba Yaga buildings and Anansi the spider to idiosyncratic anthropomorphic cats, dolls, bunnies and bread – that play out their actions in surreal prairie landscapes and unsettling domestic environments.

Reid’s art is beguiling in its playful yet cynical nature and its realization in ultra bright colours, unexpected materials and widely differing scales. The artist’s day job as a housing resource and homelessness coordinator and her roles as a wife and mother greatly inform the psychological tensions evident in her compositions. As Reid notes, her art is “a deceptively inviting metaphor for anxiety, obsessive thought and coping. It is about the desire to belong, to be a part of a community, the frustration and disappointment of having ideals mangled and the not-necessarily-logical need to meet expectations.” Reid deals in ideas with which most of us negotiating the varied demands of contemporary life can identify.

Chris Reid is a visual artist and educator based out of Brandon, Manitoba. Reid completed Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Education degrees from the University of Alberta as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she specialized in painting and drawing. In addition to her artistic practice, Reid has worked as a contemporary art curator and is employed as a Housing Resource Worker for the Brandon Regional Health Authority. She has been the recipient of grants for her art from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Reid has exhibited across Canada and in the United States for more than 25 years, including recent solo exhibitions at the Yukon Arts Centre, Latitude 53 and the Thames Art Gallery. I like to believe I am telling the truth is Chris Reid’s first solo exhibition in Winnipeg. It will travel to the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba later this year.

Gallery 1C03, Oseredok the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba will produce a publication related to this exhibition featuring a critical essay by contemporary art curator and writer Mary Reid. Expected launch date will coincide with the opening of I like to believe I am telling the truth at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in December of 2012.

Gallery 1C03 and Oseredok gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from The University of Winnipeg, Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and the Wasyl Topolnicky Memorial Foundation Inc. for this project.

Gallery 1C03 hours: Monday – Friday: 12:00 – 4:00 p.m.; Saturday: 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Closed Louis Riel Day and Good Friday. Admission is always free and all are welcome!

Image: Chris Reid, Screaming Bread Flees Grain Elevator, 2010, hard pastel on paper, 50” x 60”. Courtesy of the artist.