The Untitled Space Presents Katrina Jurjans “hence living, hence magical” Solo Exhibition

The Untitled Space is pleased to present “hence living, hence magical,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Toronto-based artist Katrina Jurjans. Curated by Indira Cesarine, the exhibit opens on June 13, 2024, with an artist reception from 6-8pm, and will be on view through June 22, 2024. 

"Hence living, hence magical" marks Jurjans' debut solo show in the United States and her first exhibition with The Untitled Space. The exhibition will feature a selection of acrylic on canvas paintings, accompanied by a site-specific installation. Jurjans’ dream-like figurative works are characterized by dense layering of patterns and colors, enhancing her narrative of emotional and physical spaces inhabited by her female subjects. With ties to magical realism, each piece delves into themes of memory, transition, and life’s dichotomies. 

Katrina Jurjans’ work is inspired by emotional narratives, boundaries – spatial, temporal, bodily – and magical realism. Primarily a painter, recent endeavors in installation have become more frequent in both her independent practice as well as with the transdisciplinary artist collective, elsewhere, of which she is a founding member. She graduated with honors from Concordia University in Montreal with a BFA in Art History and Studio Art. Her work has been generously supported by the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts. She has garnered awards from the Toronto Outdoor Art Festival, DesignTO (Juror’s Choice Award, 2021 and 2024), and Ontario Arts Council (Emerging Artist grants, 2018 and 2020). Notable past exhibitions have included solo shows at Coldstream Fine Art, Toronto (2020) and Artscape Youngplace, Toronto (2017), as well as group shows at Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2022, 2023, 2024), DesignTO, Toronto (2020, 2024), and Shin Gallery, New York (2022) among others. Her work has been featured in a number of contemporary art fairs including SPRING/BREAK Art Fair, Los Angeles (2022) and The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles (2019) and Brooklyn (2018). She has participated in art residencies in Denmark, Mexico, and Canada. Her work has been featured internationally in publications including Maake Magazine, Visionary Art Collective, Create! Magazine, in 2020 was named one of Saatchi Art’s Rising Stars.

ARTIST STATEMENT 

“My painting practice explores concepts of memory, transition, and emotion. Explorative orchestrations of emotive narrative foreground concepts of poetic multiplicity, emotionality, and ambiguity as essential to my practice and the wider expanse of feminist thought within the field of contemporary painting. Reclaiming ambiguity - spatial, bodily, temporal - as a liberating force disrupting processes of dichotomic delineation; inside/outside, here/there, presence/absence are repositioned from ideas of either/or to both/and. Critically responding to historical female representation within the canon of Western art history, where women – predominantly painted by men – were represented as polished, contained, and separate from their surroundings – I instead paint women fully immersed in both their physical and emotional environments. Sometimes flesh and blood, other times ghostly outlines – they become the fuzzy, porous boundary between foreground and background; past and present; memory and dream. 

Using a formal language of pattern, color, repetition, and layering the narratives I paint are laden with symbolism; flowers embody feelings of absence and growth and rain clouds communicate heavy emotions. Shifting into the realm of magic realism, these narratives – intimate, often nostalgic and heavy – are anchored to the physical, while simultaneously merging into the world of personal experience, memories, dreams, and hallucinations. As a backdrop of floral wallpaper becomes the textile patterns of a woman’s robe and intricate dots patterns of rain transition to tears, my aim is to present both the world and the body in a constant state of reshaping and transformation.” - Katrina Jurjans