White Water Gallery is proud to present Wild Waysides: Queer Ecologies and the New Natural, which will run at the gallery from January 11 to March 15, 2025. This is a group exhibition by sixteen 2SLGBTQSIA artists who participated in the Queer Up North artist residency in Temagami, ON, in August 2024. There will be an opening reception with remarks by curators James Fowler and Pearl Van Geest on Saturday, January 11, from 7 to 9 pm, at the gallery space at 159 Main Street East, North Bay, ON.
This instalment of Wild Waysides, a series of exhibitions and symposiums addressing ideas and provocations of queer ecologies, features a selection of the artworks created in response to Queer Up North, an artist residency held in Temagami, August 2024. This project is presented in collaboration with The Throbbing Rose Collective, White Bear Artist Residency, and the Nipissing Region Curatorial Collective with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Participating artists:
Francisco Alvarez, Schem Rogerson Bader, Jackson Bailey, Kristy Boyce, Terry Dame, James Fowler, David Frazier, Atlas Gifford, Charlie Hunter, Lou Losier, John Rubino, Walt Segers, Cai Sepulis, Christian Bernard Singer, Pearl Van Geest
For a sneak peek of what’s coming with Wild Waysides, click below for a Hyper Creative POP UP. Hyper Creative is WWG’s new YouTube video series, and in this short POP UP episode Executive Director Alex Maeve Campbell joins curator/artist James Fowler to start the conversation about what’s coming up in 2025.
White Water Gallery is pleased to present Urban Perception, Natural Reality, an interactive installation by David Chops, showing at the gallery from November 23 to December 21, 2024. This exhibition, combining 3-D and 2-D elements such as walk-through structures and paintings, is a collection of artistic works made from a variety of materials and methods, presented with immersive and interactive aspects.
There will be a reception for the exhibition during North Bay’s Downtown Old Fashioned Christmas Walk on Friday, November 29, from 6 to 9 pm. The artist will be on site and will give a talk at 7:30 pm.
From the artist:
Conflicting environments, difficult feelings, personal lived experiences, social philosophies and sub-cultural identities along with an examination of human civilization, our planet, and outward to the cosmos all inform and inspire these works.
Walk through structures symbolizing the urban, paintings beyond representing nature. Having lived in both cities, and nature I find myself not fully separated, or connected to either. Our civilization, is built on natural resource extraction while disconnecting us from nature, physically and culturally.
The word sculpture, like so many cities have downtown to declare their name and tell you where you are, I have created 3 phrases to declare my perspective and tell you where I am. The quick pace we are leaving our stable and hospitable climate behind and the enormous grief I feel for us all. The manipulative methods used to dictate our fears and desires to us and my internal struggle for liberation from these influences. And how I learned to be happy and sad at the same time. Don’t feel alone in these feelings and struggle.
Skulls symbolizing death, ejecting colour, representing light and life. Through death comes life. From the seasons changing, the loss of a loved one, the collapse of a civilization, a global mass extinction event. In 12 billion years our sun goes super-nova. Look past your nose and open the doors to a cosmic perspective.
Overall, this exhibit invites those exploring and interacting with it to reflect on their own personal experiences and feelings, and consider what fears and desires they have and how they got there. What their relationship is with the natural and urban environments, and what they are to each other. How a larger perspective can change our view of ourselves and of life and death here on earth. And how all of these things are connected, influence and shape each other.
David Chops is a full-time, self taught artist working from his creative space and studio at his rural home in the Boreal Forest of North-East Ontario.
In his youth, as a survivor of poverty, child abuse, drug addiction and homelessness, in an urban setting, he found solace and community in underground social movements. These environments empowered him through a DIY ethos and diverse expressions of creativity and imagination using non-traditional mediums, that continues to have a strong influence on his art. Growing up in a big city, then living in natural environments as an adult, he feels of belonging to both urban and rural settings, but not fully part of either. That said, living with nature is where he thrives as a person and an artist.
Now, as a climate change migrant in Northeastern Ontario, he continues to develop his art practice in a professional, focused, intentional way. As his art career has progressed so has his technique in working with these materials allowing him to skilfully accomplish increasingly ambitious projects. David Chops, draws inspiration from other artists, the work they do, his own story of a difficult but often adventurous journey through life, and an ever evolving need to understand fundamental truths about himself and the world in which he lives.
Working as an artist has always been healing and a source of strength for him as he hopes to share those experiences with others. He is excited about telling his personal story and relating that to the larger, collective issues we face. He is most excited about and currently driven towards work with stencil/spray-paint, salvaged plywood, more word sculptures, large sculptural works, immersive installations, incorporating sound, lighting, interactive aspects, and video projections, and to make an electric vehicle from discarded bike parts and other found items that will become a mobile art piece.
Learn more about this artist and the work he does by visiting him on his website.
