SALLY THURLOW
CROSSROADS

MAY 23 TO JUNE 16, 2018
Reception & Doors Open Toronto: Saturday, May 26, 10 AM - 5 PM
Poetry Reading & Speakers: Saturday, June 02, 2 - 4 PM
Music & Speakers: Saturday, June 09, 2 - 4 PM

The Red Head Gallery is pleased to present Crossroads, an exhibition by artist, Sally Thurlow. 

Upon entering the gallery, you will encounter a total of sixty-four driftwood tree trunks and branches of varying sizes floating before you. First, you will be drawn into a channel of driftwoods, twelve on either side. Each bears some form of natural element, a reminder of the goodness our earth offers when we live with respect for it and our neighbours. Cultures around the world have practiced earthly celebrations for millennia, but in our fast-paced lifestyles in cities, surrounded by buildings, we are less connected to nature which can get lost in the metropolises. 

My journey to this sculptural installation comes from my history of long walks in nature. The distinctive forms I see sharpen my awareness about whatever I’m working on at the time. Mostly my collections of flotsam wash onto the beaches I have been living by. I am always interested in what oceans or lakes deposit on the shore each day. Driftwood especially, is hauntingly beautiful, often suggesting animal and human forms. It’s difficult to miss the metaphor in today’s world where millions of people are cast out and thrown adrift by wars and growing scarcity due to a number of politically driven problems including climate change. Since Systems Failure, my last Red Head Gallery exhibition in September 2016, many important political changes have taken place, further destabilizing the people from the political forces that be. 

...Eventually you will come to a circle of twelve, ten-foot high driftwood sentinels, symbolic of the world at large. They are facing each other in acknowledgment of our human strengths and weaknesses. Facing them from the centre of this circle stand twelve walking cane sized driftwood sticks representing different forms of modern slavery, also asking for acknowledgment and help. 

Daily we are reminded by news reports about the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots, inadequate living wages, human trafficking, suffering and shortened life-spans. Those that have, have lifestyles that are dependent on the suffering of others. What does this say about us? Perhaps the discomfort we feel when confronted by this is necessary. Often times we catch ourselves unaware.  I was surprised to learn about how many “slaves I had” working for me. A friend had sent me a website called Slavery Footprint and what it revealed inspired me. I took in just by clicking on the different categories of things I own, eat, or wear that these items have a slavery footprint. Awareness inspires movement toward change. 

Since Toronto has become such a culturally diverse city this is a great opportunity to hear from the people about what matters to you. I invite every visitor to the gallery to share your views and symbols by writing on the bark-inspired papers provided and placing them on the tree trunk which best represents you. So please, spread the word; bring your friends and colleagues. Our crucial (lifestyles) decisions bring us to another Crossroads. 

BIO

Sally Thurlow is a multi-disciplinary artist living on the shores of Lake Ontario near Toronto. Her practice, based in sculpture, installation, photography and painting, invites the contemplation of humanist,environmental, cultural, and spiritual issues as they manifest in our daily lives. Thurlow’s material selections are chosen carefully, symbolic within the meaning of her forms, be they driftwood, woven fabrics, animal, vegetable, mineral, steel, fibreglass, paper, photography, painting, plexiglass, or robotic. For several years she has been exploring the dynamic range of archetypal figurative forms using driftwood, and other ephemera collected in her wanderings of inquiry often leading to vital juxtapositions. Thurlow’s latest work, Crossroads focuses on highlighting the natural world, contrasting it with manufactured world problems, and inviting the public to write their comments on the driftwoods via “bark” papers. This crossroads with her September 2016 Red Head Gallery exhibition, Systems Failure which evolved to a new kind of surrealism that included the manufactured, the machined, and the robotic.

In this previous Red Head Gallery exhibition, her forms grieved the breakdown of family, as well as larger groups: friends, corporations, political parties, to world organizations, in an ever-spiralling broken system. Here we were confronted with the visual force of four alienated characters represented by rib-cages - familiar yet uncomfortably strange... with expectations of each other.

Thurlow received a BA majoring in Fine Arts from the University of Toronto, finishing with Cultural and Environmental Studies at Trent University, with
significant earlier studies at OCAD and George Brown College. She has given numerous artist talks and workshops at educational institutions and public galleries. Her work has been shown internationally and she has been the recipient of various Ontario Arts Council Awards. She is a member of The Iris Group and The Red Head Gallery, both artists’ collectives. Her work is held in private collections across Canada, and at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa ON.

Featured Guests

Poetry Reading & Speakers: Saturday, June 02, 2 - 4 PM

Clemence and Ryan Hirons met and married in Rwanda while both were working for an NGO.

Merike Lugus is a published writer and visual artist, with a Master’s degree in Sociology from U of T. She came to Canada as a refugee from Estonia from WWII.

William Woodworth/Raweno:kwas is an adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture where he teaches native culture and architecture. He has a doctorate in Traditional Knowledge from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Summi Siddiqui is a world traveller who connects cultures and people with her stories. 

Music & Speakers: Saturday, June 09, 2 - 4 PM

"Dr. Jonathan M. Bordo, Professor of Cultural Studies and the Cultural Studies Doctoral Program at Trent University... is a philosophically trained cultural historian and theorist whose thought is grounded in the philosophical, scientific, religious and aesthetic culture of early modernity (1450 – 1710)… " https://www.trentu.ca/culturalstudies/faculty-research/undergraduate.../jonathan-bordo His thought and work these days is preoccupied by Place and why it matters in the era of digital reproduction and the internet. Among his many essays and writings on art is History Lessons published by Art History and a collection of poems called Art History 101. At present he is finishing some books so he can book out of the academy.

Ming Hoffner came from Zhejiang China in 2002. She has been in Canada for 16 years. Ming is an ECE working in the kindergarten for the Toronto Catholic District School Board. She originally came to Canada  to unite with her husband  whom she married in China. Before they got married, they had been talking through paper mail for multiple years, without seeing each other face to face. One year after he submitted the application form, she got the immigrant visa and came to Canada. She will speak about her struggles to learn the language and culture and find her place here.

For more information visit: www.sallythurlow.com