![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/DSC_6450.jpg\" "\\"DSC_6450\\"")
<\/a>Guests\u00a0at the opening reception on October 16, 2014.<\/p>\nThe gaze in Joe Harjo\u2019s series of self-portraits mesmerizes the viewer, while slight variations between each photograph produce an eerie sense of an unfolding action, almost cinematic in its flow, a feeling which is shattered upon closer examination of the images. Those staged facial expressions imitate and ridicule the turn-of-the-century documentation of indigenous peoples by Edward S. Curtis, who imposed costumes, poses and expressions onto his subjects. Harjo decries that the lasting influence of photographs created exactly 100 years ago can still be felt in contemporary culture, and seeks to dispel these stereotypes.<\/p>\n
Powerful presence is similarly striking in the other, more abstract works in the exhibition. The sculptural aesthetics of Joseph Duarte\u2019s wooden compositions is reinforced by the tactile quality of the material. Perfectly symmetrical, these patterns are based on the details of the artist\u2019s grandmother\u2019s quilt. Duarte, a U.S. marine of eight years and veteran of the Iraqi war, has transformed these tender, domestic patterns into rough, angular objects.<\/p>\n Transformation is also the basis of the practice of Esteban Delgado, who had previously produced a number of angular installations of cut geometric vinyl shapes which he placed in windows and on walls in various cities in South Texas, a project supported by an Andy Warhol Foundation grant. Delgado\u2019s series made for the SATO exhibition is a continuation of these explorations. The smooth art objects present to the viewer a study of the energy of angular compositions in the upper part, with hints at street fronts in the lower part of the series.<\/p>\n Connie Swann\u2019s works, inspired by an unlikely encounter of the intersection of Piety Street and Desire Street in New Orleans, explore the dissonant characteristics of paint in their texture, gesture and color. Although the series gives an impression of unity at first sight, as much in terms of the overall disposition of the paintings as in the individual compositions, a close examination reveals the tension between paint on wet versus more controlled, thick brushstrokes. In front of Swann\u2019s series are the works by Julie Ledet, products of a ritualistic act which resulted in a transformation of mundane objects, cheesecloths, into \u201cghostly\u201d, \u201cshroud-life\u201d objects. The uncanny shapes hold in them the memory of the performative action, each telling a story of its own.<\/p>\n The story revealed in Clay McClure\u2019s collage can be read in two stages: at first, the image is anonymous, monochromatic, almost erased, with only the overall features being clear \u2013 that we are in front of a boy and his mother, their facial features obliterated; then, as the viewer gets closer, details become visible, namely that the image is composed of utility and medical bills. The scene unfolding before our eyes is that of a family going to a food bank, anonymized by society, dragged into the spiral of poverty by these unforgiving markers of financial hardship.<\/p>\n Quiet in their overall aesthetics, the artworks reveal their secrets, bridging the themes of transformation, dissonance and history, as the viewer approaches the works and examines them from an intimate distance, dictated in part by the size of the works and in part by their materiality.<\/p>\n<\/a>Joe Harjo, Self-portraits<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Joseph Duarte\u2019s wooden compositions<\/p>\n<\/a>Works by Esteban Delgado<\/p>\n<\/a>Connie Swann\u2019s paintings<\/p>\n<\/a>Works by Julie Ledet<\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0Clay McClure: 16 Tons, Food Bank.<\/em><\/p>\n