Old Orchard Miranda Crabtree
Opening night: Friday, May 17th, 18:00 – 20:00
Open until May 31st, Wed-Sun, 13:00-18:00
A group of paintings by Toronto-based artist, Miranda Crabtree
Old Orchard is a grove of silken air-brushed panels. Women are laid into the grain of the landscape; participating in activities of collecting, archiving, protecting, playing, or the keeping of their ambiguously vegetal props. Crabtree imagines the aged and seemingly barren orchard as an idyllic past-space for fantasy and desire to flourish. The exhibition is an invitation to wander through a once verdant woodland and witness its transformation into a site for the activities and labors women. Playful figures frozen in their act, embody a physical autonomy and momentary pleasure that melts into the tangled spiritual domain of the pastoral.
The deriving subject matter from dreams and daily interaction with natural spaces, Miranda Crabtree creates interdisciplinary imagery as a panacea to these sorted impressions. Her work echoes a two-fold and deeply felt concern for her surroundings that connects current ecological dissonance with the restricted ability of women to move safely through urban wooded spaces.
The artist would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Text by Miranda Crabtree and Laura Hudspith
