The Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) will be featuring a special exhibition titled Tim Whiten: Elemental Fire from Sept. 15 until Dec. 2, 2023. Curated by Liz Ikiriko, the exhibition showcases Whiten’s work, who describes himself as an “image maker and creator of cultural objects.”
This series of works is connected by the term “Elemental,” representing the elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Elemental Fire will be the final exhibition of this series.
Clara Halpern, assistant curator at the AGYU, says, “This exhibition is part of an expanded, multi-venue retrospective and collaborative publication celebrating Whiten’s extensive career, developed as a partnership with the Art Gallery of Peterborough, Art Gallery of York University, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and McMaster Museum of Art. Although it is part of this constellation of exhibitions, it has been uniquely conceived for AGYU by Liz Ikiriko and Tim Whiten, and focuses on the material transformation of fire.”
The exhibition features 14 cultural objects representing Whiten’s long career. The AGYU will also host a special artwork titled “Ground Rules” that Whiten has made specifically for Elemental Fire.
Jenifer Papararo, director and curator of the AGYU adds, “[“Ground Rules”] is a work in glass for which shards of broken glass are precisely laid out in a series of shapes in brightly coloured glass that appear to form a hopscotch game. “Ground Rules” is very alluring with its brilliance of reflective pieces of coloured glass so much so you want to touch it, but touching it would in all likelihood draw blood, and if you imagine further, as if you were to play a game of hopscotch on it, the beauty of it turns dark.”
Papararo goes on further to speak about the interpretation of the artworks featured and Whiten’s work: “There is no exact way to perceive the exhibition or any of the individual works, but the objects are to be discovered.”
Some of these objects feature “Snare,” a large crate “lined with a reflective surface.” Papararo says that if one were trapped within the snare, they “would be confined in an illuminated space forced to look at [their] own image.”
Halpern comments on Whiten’s extensive career as an artist and how it is represented in Elemental Fire. “Tim Whiten has had an incredible career, and this exhibition brings together works that span a number of time periods, right up to a new work that is being shown for the first time in this exhibition. The materials that Tim Whiten works with are very thoughtfully chosen, and integral to the work and its meaning, and I think the exhibition reflects that.”
Exhibit curator, Ikiriko, will also have her work showcased in the exhibition. Papararo speaks of Ikiriko’s specific artwork titled “Siege Perilous,” saying that her work gives “a feel of another time in history … I perceive [her] curatorial gestures as portals, as if [she] is drawing another world, creating openings into one reality into another.”
To learn more about this exhibition, click here.
