Katie Lemieux
June 25 - August 13, 2023
Reception: Sunday, June 25 from 2-5pm
Craft Ontario Gallery, 1106 Queen Street West, Toronto
‘Speak for Me’ is a solo exhibition of sculptural ceramic works by Thunder Bay-based artist Katie Lemieux that probes the boundaries of communication. Using hands as a metaphor for language, the work explores the limits of the verbal word, creeping into the visual and the tactile.
Each sculpture maintains traces of the artist through thumb prints, finger strokes or gestural clay placement. Highlighting elements of the sculptural process is important to the work, as the progress of ‘becoming’ also parallels the progress of communicating. This analogy is bolstered by the physical similarities between clay and flesh.
Within the ongoing theme of non-verbal communication in the artist’s work, ‘Speak for Me’ focuses on a particular dialogue: the silent conversation with our own voice, our own authenticity. How do we experience our own inner dialogue or self-talk? In both conversation and self-talk, do we use our own words or do we subconsciously regurgitate others’ language? Does allowing others to speak for us diminish our authenticity?
Ultimately ‘Speak for Me’ explores the permeability between our external and internal selves: both the barriers to expression, as well as the apertures through which ideas pass fluidly, rendering inside and outside indistinguishable.
Katie Lemieux is a ceramic sculptor born in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She earned a BFA in ceramics from Lakehead University (2016) and a MFA from the Peck School of the Arts in Wisconsin, Milwaukee (2019). Katie has participated in ceramics residencies in Jingdezhen, China; Zagreb, Croatia; Medicine Hat, Canada; and, most recently, Skopelos, Greece. Her works have been shown in group exhibitions in Canada, the US, Croatia, and Korea, and in the solo exhibition ‘Ending Up’ at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery (2022).
In addition to her work as an artist and ceramic/sculptural technician, Katie also works as a Personal Support Worker with young adults. Her social work continues to drive her artistic narrative as she creates in her at-home studio.
studiolemieux.com
