SAVAC Members Juried Exhibition

25 April - 26 May, 2002

Laidlaw Hall, Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts Drive, Mississauga

Opening Reception: Thursday, 25 April 25, 6-8pm

Jury: Shelly Bahl, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Asma Arshad Mahmood

Jurors Shelly Bahl, Sarindar Dhaliwal and Asma Arshad Mahmood have selected works by SAVAC members that best facilitate a rich and textured reading of the contemporary views of diasporic South Asian artists. This exhibtion features ten artists of diverse practice and geographical location.

Artists

Sylvat Aziz (Kingston, Ontario) - painting
"My work is based primarily on the position that "culture" is not monolithic. I explore the political and the socio/religious imagery of the popular art traditions and cultures of Islam with the West's driving socio-economic and counter-cultural forces."

Born in Pakistan, Sylvat Aziz currently teaches in the Department of Art, Queen's University and lives near Kingston, Ontario.

Siona Benjamin (Carbondale, Illinois) - painting
"In the Finding Home Series I raise questions about what and where is "home", while evoking issues such as identity, immigration, motherhood, and the role of art in social change. I am a Sephardic Jew from India living in the United States."

Chitra Ganesh (Brooklyn, New York) - digital media
"I digitally manipulate Amar Chitra Katha's Indian comic books, altering images and rewriting dialogues. Original narratives are undone to create a series of interactions emphasizing narrative disjuncture in order to question stable notions of identity, culture, and desire."

Chitra Ganesh lives and works in Brooklyn.

Rummy Gill (Mississauga, Ontario) - mixed media
Originally from London, England, Rummy's work, mainly oil paintings and print are inspired by Indian and British textiles.

"By combining both these references, I try to make associations with myself by questioning, who I am, and where I come from."

Samina Mansuri (Toronto, Ontario) - drawing
"Created during a residency at Gasworks London, England, these drawings work together with no implied narrative. The drawings speak to the human predicament as I see it within and outside myself. They are about the inevitability of change pitted against our desire for permanence."

Samina Mansuri studied in Pakistan, later in New York and currently works and resides in Toronto.

Amin Rehman (Toronto, Ontario) - painting
"I explore the possibilities of the encaustic medium, providing marks for the dual themes of alienation and exile while alluding to the creative process and a search for self and home. Such images are orientations and catalysts on the artist's journey of identity and belonging"

Amin Rehman is an experimental painter who has been working in encaustic for over a decade in Toronto.

Sakun Samarkoon (Vancouver, British Columbia) - mixed media installation
"My work is a process of self-searching as well as a reflection of my process of reconnecting with my Sri Lankan background, cultural history and family heritage." Sakun Samarakoon was born in Mississauga, Ontario and is currently living and practicing art in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Tamara Zeta Sanowar-Makhan (Toronto, Ontario) - sculptural installation
A Member of the Family portrays my perspective on the relationship between domestic violence, guns and power at the age of nine during my childhood in Mississauga." Tamara is a Toronto-born multi-media artist of Trinidadian heritage and diverse ancestry.

Camilla Singh (Toronto, Ontario) - digital - mixed media
Why are you talking to me? She's the one with the gun is part of a series of hybrid works which explore issues of appropriation and the redefinition of sexuality. Born in England, Camilla currently lives and works in Toronto.

Leela Viswanathan (Toronto, Ontario) - photography
"I took photographs on a train journey to my father's hometown, Kozhikode (Calicut) Kerala, India and juxtaposed them with text excerpted from letters written by my parents to their family in India, after immigrating to Canada in 1960-61. This work is my attempt at understanding my parents' legacy and discovering the world they left behind."

While highly engaged in photography and writing projects, Leela also works in the field of social policy and planning in Toronto.

Jurors

Shelly Bahl is a visual artist and educator who has been exhibiting in North America for the past decade.

Sarindar Dhaliwal is a visual artist based in Toronto who has shown extensively in Canada and internationally over the past twenty years.

Asma Arshad Mahmood is a visual artist who has had more than fifteen international exhibitions to date.