Lithic Innards

Installation view of Lithic Innards at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery

2020, Oshawa, Ontario

This exhibition is supported by the RBC Foundation, the RBC Emerging Artist Project, and the Canada Council for the Arts

Press Release

Exhibition Card

Exhibition Website

RBC Artist Incubator Lab

Video - Ellen Bleiwas, Artist in Residence @ RMG RBC Artist Incubator Lab

Exhibition Text

Lithic Innards is an exhibition of new work by Toronto-based artist Ellen Bleiwas. The installation’s assembly of unfired clay figures prod at conscious and unconscious knowledge, prompting an experience that is something like recognition, a form of looking that is both familiar and new all at once. The individual works are formed from molded masses or coils of clay, rolled and stretched long into slippery ropes. These soft, pliable coils are wound around and around to form towers that are pinched and smoothed, creating space and texture inside and out. The arrangement of these forms activates circular movement, which direct the viewer to move around the works in a circle, reinforcing the artist’s interest in repetition, reflection, and looking in. Holding space, the installation also produces a feeling of grounded monumentality characteristic of architectural forms and primordial rock. Inviting you into this space and into yourself, Bleiwas asks: do you know this place?

Exhibition Opening Photos: