Angell Gallery | exhibitions | Aleksandra Rdest

Project Room

Aleksandra Rdest
Swagger and Sashay

June 5th – July 17th
Opening reception Thursday June 3rd 6–9 PM

by exhibition

Aleksandra Rdest uses a language drawn from weather patterns; inspired by sound waves, particles and cells on a microscopic level. The point of departure for these works is growth and decay; cellular division and multiplication, biological colonization. Rdest’s love affair with colour gives rise to these paintings which are created by richly layering veils of paint to form a deep surface.

Rdest speculates on the abundance of human intervention in all areas of the globe; she is exploring a reality where nothing has been untouched by humans. After a personal exploration in search of “wilderness” in her own life; Rdest has come to agree with science fiction author and environmentalist Bruce Sterling when he wrote

“There can be no true "wilderness" in a Greenhouse Earth. All creatures great and small are under the same gray sky. There can be no refuge, nothing can go untouched. "Nature" is over; there is no sanctity left to defend; all that breathes is breathing unnatural air.”

Through painting Rdest is reaching for the sublime; the tragedy of yearning, the mockery of the unattainable just beyond her grasp. This mingles with the caricature of the gesture; it enters with a flourish, sashays into the picture plane only to be overtaken by growth.

As the viewer relaxes their vision the hidden nature emerges, the nature that is collecting in the corners, multiplying until it is no longer hidden. Within this space cells begin to organize. She asks: will they build cities or will they build cell walls? In the space that Rdest creates, these forces are interchangeable, organic, and synthetic.

ALEKSANDRA RDEST: Having attended OCAD, the artist has had solo shows at the Tatar Gallery (Toronto), New Work, (St. John's, NL) , and Pari Nadimi Gallery (Toronto). She has been featured in Carte Blanche, Semi Finalist Exhibition Catalogue, Skye Hohmann, Generated Habitats, Spell, Mendell Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK and Big Show. Her work can be found in the public collections of Royal Bank of Canada, Holt Renfrew, Canaccord Capital Corporation, Burnac Corporation, Toronto, ON, and GMP Montreal, QC. She has been featured in Na Luzie” Current Magazine, Rind Magazine, and in the Toronto Star.