Sondra Meszaros featured in The Rusty Toque

SONDRA MESZAROS The Rustic Toque, an online literary, film, and art journal Issue 7, November 30, 2014
originally published on: http://www.therustytoque.com/art-portfolio-sondra-meszaros.html

Aileen Burns

Shun brings together a selection of new photo etchings and drawings by Calgary-based artist Sondra Meszaros, shown for the first time at Corkin Gallery. For Shun, Meszaros has culled imagery form such diverse sources as European folklore, cinematic heroines, fairy tales, paganism, mythology and traditional still-life motifs. The common thread that weaves together these disparate references is the female protagonist who reappears, along side her animal doubles, in different forms throughout the exhibition. With this work Meszaros seeks to address the ambiguous and relationship between female archetypes and representations of animals that are central in traditional European storytelling.

The central piece, Shun, from which the show takes its title, is comprised of five photo etchings layered with charcoal. The underlying etching is the same in each variation; a motherly figure is depicted in human scale, and appears to be bending down in a warm and familiar gesture to gather a child in her arms. However, the overexposed whites of the picture obscure the woman’s face, rendering it blank and mask-like. Likewise, her bare outstretched arms and hands lack detail and look as much like monstrous claws as human limbs. There is a distinct push and pull established between the warmth of the mother figure, and her menacing counterpart, both of whom are present in the same figure. The tension established between seductive warmth and beauty, and its horrific mirror image is repeated throughout the show. In addition to establishing the central character of the exhibition, Shun introduces the cinematic framing that is visible throughout Meszaros’ recent work. The three versions of this work presented at Corkin Gallery introduce repetition, with barely distinguishable variations from picture to picture. The pattern is reminiscent of film frame, which when seen side-by-side, make movement barely visible amid repetitive frames.

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Meszaros is best known for her folktale-inspired charcoal drawings in which human figures and the natural world blend, morph, and butt up against one another. This part of her practice forms an integral part of the current exhibition. She writes, “I think the vital aspect of the work is that the narratives or myths that are being referenced are not specific to one story, but rather a combination of common motifs, symbols, and archetypes.” Meszaros relies on our own familiarity with quick whitted fox, the all-knowing owl, and the female figure on a journey to self-realization and sexual awakening.

In two charcoal drawings titled Familiars, pairs of foxes are engrossed in combat with one another, creating a doubling or mirroring similar to that of Shun. The fox is key figure in folklore throughout Europe, the Arab world, China, Japan, and the many aboriginal cultures of the Americas. In the European tradition generally, and in Aesop’s fables in particular, the fox is beautiful, cunning, intelligent and deceitful. Within the context of this exhibition, which explores the characteristics of the female protagonist in film culture and beyond, the foxes can be understood as representative of the simultaneous reverence, suspicion, and fear evoked by intelligent women in leading roles. It is also worth noting that this series builds on Meszaros’ previous series Come a Little Closer, in which she devised her own version of Little Red Riding Hood. In Shun, the fox and owl also take-on special meaning in relation to the main character; they reference witch familiars in European Folklore. Meszaros denies us the exact narratives that we expect from the powerful characters she draws but opens up new possibilities for supernatural adventure and becoming. 

Swallow and Cast are two charcoal drawings which bridge Meszaros’ fairy-tale inspired imagery with her current interest in cinematic scenarios. While neither of these haunting scenes featuring cloaked or masked women depicts a specific tale, they seem to belong to a larger, elusive narrative. The film-screen-like dimensions of the drawings and the recurring presence of the mysterious female lead suggest that they could be fragments of a longer film sequence. The delicate detailed drawings of the owl, burning candles on mounds of wax, and lace-like compositions of spider webs introduce iconography that helps establishes a mise-en-scène for entire body of work on view. The candles give warmth to the space and set it in realm outside of the clear white walls and clean white light that characterize galleries. The finely spun spider webs reference the centrality of the female figure with their fastidious pattern on soft black paper that doubles as a barely perceivable trap.

SONDRA MESZAROS is an artist and educator based in Calgary, Alberta. She completed her undergraduate degree from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2000. She earned her MFA at the University of Windsor in 2002. Over the last decade she has taught as an instructor within the School of Visual Arts at the Alberta College of Art & Design. 

Upcoming exhibitions include ‘Herland’ a group exhibition curated by Liz Christensen at 60 Wall Gallery-Deutsche Bank Art in New York in late 2014, Carte Blanche a group exhibition at DNA Artspace curated by Thea Yabut, and a new solo exhibition at Corkin Gallery in 2015. Past group exhibitions include ‘5 Degrees’ curated by Mark Clintberg at the Art Gallery of Calgary, ‘Drawing’ curated by Chris Cran and John Will at Triangle Contemporary Gallery, and ‘Hearts of the New West: Calgary Biennial 2012’ atAVALANCHE! Institute of Contemporary Art curated by Steven Cottingham. Past solo exhibitions include ‘Curing’, ‘come a little closer’, ‘Ceremony’, and ‘Shun’ at Corkin Gallery.

Her work has been placed in many prestigious collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe, and work has been commissioned for the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto. Meszaros’ work has been exhibited at the Armory Show, Art Basel, Basel Miami, The Toronto International Art Fair, and The VIP- Viewing In Private International Contemporary Art Fair. Meszaros is represented by Corkin Gallery in Toronto.