Katie Bethune-Leamen
Orchid mantis. Tom Selleck.
Hats. (Gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover.)
Also hats.
Gallery One
Exhibition Info
Katie Bethune-Leamen’s new work continues her preoccupation with the presence and resonance of objects. Combining amorphous, blobbily glazed porcelain forms with gaunt, steel supports, and a maelstrom of orbiting imagery and element—high-crowned hats, irregular neon light lines, digitally printed silk yardage, vintage movie posters, found objects, hairclips, dangling lumpen pearls, pretty insects, gaudy framing devices, sheets of coloured latex—Bethune-Leamen’s installations form conversations between ambiguous objects that elide language yet remain firmly grounded in the material world. Paralleling the indexical title of her installation—Orchid mantis. Tom Selleck. Hats. (Gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover.) Also hats.—the artist pieces together these many different elements as part of an expanding inventory of objects and images that intersect on both formal and expressive levels.
The artist acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Photography: Toni Hafkenscheid
Artist Biography
Katie Bethune-Leamen works in sculpture and installation. Recent solo exhibitions include: Hair did. Nails did. Keep everything did. (Gustav von Aschenbach) (DNA, London, ON), dango emoji (Richard Rhodes Dupont Projects, Toronto), and Shiny, Object, Person. (Art Gallery of Ontario); group exhibitions at Thames-Side Gallery (London, UK), Susan Hobbs Gallery (Toronto), and others. Recent residencies include: the Canada Council for the Arts Paris Residency and Fogo Island Arts among others. Her writing has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine and Border Crossings. She is based in Toronto, Ontario.