For over twenty years, St. Catharines-based artist Carolyn Wren has explored the relationship between identity and place. Known for her large-scale drawings and relief prints that poetically conflate landscapes and the human body, during the last decade she has turned her attention to the written narratives that have shaped her worldview. By transcribing texts such as Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, and Virginia Woolf’s iconic feminist essay A Room of One’s Own, Wren manifests personal and cultural terrain in monumental physical forms.
Alongside significant early works such as War Map Dress Trilogy, this exhibition premieres recent drawings and immersive, experiential installations. The structure and labour of Wren’s method are the threads that bind her work; be it hand-carving, printing, writing, or embroidering, Wren finds meditation in the repetitive tasks of life.
~Marcie Bronson
