Samar Hejazi - Xspace - Opening June 29 - July 28 2018

June Clark - AGO - July 1st Opening - October 2018

Sara Pearson - Project Gallery - July 5- July 28 2018

Katrina Jurjans - Cutler and Gross - June & July 2018

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Akin MOCA artist Samar Hejazi will be exhibiting her recent audio visual piece Mawtini at Xspace Cultural Centre. Opening Friday June 29th 7-10 pm until July 28th 2018, Maw6ini is an audio visual installation that simulates the internal experience of the Arab diaspora in the west through the appropriation of the english language. The installation is a combination of typographical artworks spanning across textile, soundscapes and video of the anthem Maw6ini(homeland), an Arabic song by Palestinian poet Ibrahim Touqan. Hejazi’s piece allows the viewer to reflect on how ancestry and present environment merge to inform elements of a new and continually shifting (cultural) identity.

Xpace Cultural Centre is a not-for-profit artist-run centre dedicated to providing emerging and student artists, designers, curators and writers with opportunities to showcase their work in a professional setting. Xpace is supported by the OCAD Student Union.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12–6PM Address: 303 Lansdowne Avenue Unit 2, Main Floor Toronto, ON M6K 2W5

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June Clark , a member of Akin's Sunrise Studio, will be exhibiting work for the July 1st opening of the recently revisioned J.S. McLean Centre for Canadian Art , at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The J.S. McLean Centre for Canadian Art closed for renovations on March 6, 2018 and will re-open on Canada Day on July 1, 2018, following an extensive renovation. The re-configuration and re-installation of the Centre will see works by Indigenous, Inuit and Canadian artists put into conversation across time, to better reflect the Nation to Nation relationship that Canada was built upon. In recognition that the AGO is located on Mississauga Anishinaabe territory, all texts in the McLean Centre will be trilingual – in Anishnaabemowin, English and French. The Inuit collection will feature texts in Inuktitut, along with English and French.

“The re-opening of the McLean Centre is an exciting opportunity to place artists at the core of the installations, to tell stories from new perspectives and engage visitors with the very best works – both new and familiar – from the Gallery’s Indigenous and Canadian collection,” said Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art.

Once open, the McLean Centre will feature works by Indigenous artists Carl Beam, Ruth Cuthand, Robert Houle, Robert Markle, Kent Monkman, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Jessie Oonark, Jane Ash Poitras and Jeff Thomas among others, along with Inuit artists Shuvinai Ashoona and Annie Pootoogook. Canadian artists will include Florence Carlyle, Emily Carr, June Clark, Lawren Harris, Jamelie Hassan, Kazuo Nakamura, Joanne Tod, Joyce Wieland and many more. In addition to the Indigenous and Canadian works positioned together, the Centre will include dedicated spaces for both Inuit art and sculpture, and Indigenous artists. This reinstallation is part of the larger Gallery-wide Look: Forward project begun in 2017.

The installation of the AGO’s Indigenous and Canadian Collection is generously supported by:
Andrew & Marianne Guizzetti
Robert Harding & Angel Yang
The McLean Foundation

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Exhibition Dates: July 5 – 28, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday July 5th 6:00 – 8:00pm
Location: Project Gallery 1210 Dundas Street East

A member and the manager of Akin's Dupont Studio, Sara Pearson is a Toronto based artist who graduated with a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design University. Using abstracted imagery of crystallic forms and suggestions of remembered landscapes from past travels, themes of transformation and healing are explored from a feminine perspective with a focus on the spiritual connection between womxn and nature.

Wanderer explores the process of loss, forgiveness and the rebuilding of one’s self. In life we wander, searching for meaning, identity and connection. Experiencing unexpected change, letting go of past attachments, picking ourselves up again with the support of those around us and traveling a new path.

In her new body of work Sara Pearson continues her obsession with themes of geological and gemological formations, working with mediums that reflect natural elements of the Earth such as bronze, rocks and clay. She is also interested in the overlap of digital and traditional processes, the visual tangle of abstract and representational methodologies of art making and the optical play of collage. This is Sara’s second solo show with Project Gallery. She currently lives and works in Toronto where she has been a member of Akin Collective for four years. She holds a BFA from OCAD University.

To RSVP click here
Project Gallery is located at 1210 Dundas St E and open Tues-Sat 11-6pm
Please direct inquiries to devan@projectgallery.ca

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Through June and July 2018 - Luxury British eyewear brand Cutler and Gross is proud to feature artist Katrina Jurjans, awith a presentation of “my transformation is ongoing” in the Toronto store, as part of Cutler and Gross Visionaires. The Visionaires series encompasses a range of collaborations between Cutler and Gross and artistic and creative talents, whether new, emerging or famous, who have the personality, creative vision and intelligent style to help us all see the world differently. To view “my transformation is ongoing” complemented by Cutler and Gross eyewear, visit Cutler and Gross, 758 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON, M6J 1E9 FOR MORE INFORMATION: torontopr@cutlerandgross.com www.cutlerandgross.com

About Katrina Jurjans Katrina graduated from Concordia University in 2014 with a BFA in Studio Art and Art History. In her last year of studies, she became increasingly fascinated with spatial theory and in particular spaces of transition and notions of ephemerality, memory, transformation and emotionality. Manifesting in various forms throughout the years, these ideas have been brought to the conceptual forefront of her painting practice, where they have been solidified into the visual language of pattern, layering, colour and spatial tension. About my transformation is ongoing Driven by emotion, the paintings presented explore the intensity and complexity of feelings within intimate relationships. Through the sharing of space – both physically and emotionally – the figures are suspended in a transient moment, symbolically framed by large blocks of colour occupying the peripheries. In turn, these peripheral spaces mark a distinct border between the captured moment and everything that exists beyond it, ruminating on the transformation that takes place when moving from one space - physically, temporally, emotionally - into another. This installation pushes this idea further by envisioning what exists beyond the canvas’ borders. Disrupting the idea that painting needs to exists within a fixed, two-dimensional space, it plays with the concept of transformation in both poetic and physical ways, as the painting’s patterns are transmuted into other forms. This installation will be up till the end of July 2018. k.jurjans@gmail.com @katrinajurjans

About Cutler and Gross Founded in 1969, British luxury eyewear brand Cutler and Gross combines the finest Italian craftsmanship with irrefutably cool style. Since its establishment in fashion’s halcyon days, the brand’s signature creativity has been applied to sunglasses and optical frames with their trademark numbered designs and absence of an ostentatious logo. The bold, individual style of Cutler and Gross has attracted some of the most prestigious names in the industry for collaborations – from design houses such as Erdem, Comme Des Garçons and Maison Martin Margiela, to creative icons including Victoria Beckham, Roksanda Ilincic and Bella Freud, as well as limited edition launches such as Jay-Z for Barney’s New York.