I’m Right Where You Left Me

Opening Reception: February 4, 2:00 - 4:00 pm
Artist Talk with Mia Sandhu (former Hamilton Artist Inc. Cotton Factory Residency Program recipient): March 4, 2:00 pm

I’m Right Where You Left Me is a two-woman show, presenting visual stories of women who surrender to the environments they are placed within. Artists Mia Sandhu and Miranda Crabtree tackle the teasing, playful inner worlds of women exploring their environment, pushing boundaries of old-school femininity, while asserting a woman’s right to physical autonomy and sexual self-expression. Sandhu and Crabtree are reacting to cultural, man-made signifiers, such as wreaths, as well as other talismanic shapes found in nature: circles made with leaves, shrines constructed with sticks, paths carved through forests. Both artists conjure the natural environment as the instinctual site for women to unfurl. Sandhu presents vivid, large-scale wreaths of foliage embellished with erotic female imagery. Crabtree’s watercolours explore heroines, often gathered in community, as they strive to transcend the inhospitable elements of desolate environments. These symbolic interventions offer a cathartic signaling back to our own nature and to the inner paths that allow space for spiritual change.
-Miranda Crabtree / Alex Raponi

Miranda Crabtree is a painter and installation artist, based out of her home city, Toronto. Crabtree received her BFA from NSCAD University in 2007. Her paper-based watercolour/gouache paintings and installations have shown in galleries across Toronto, including Gallery 1313, The Gladstone Hotel’s Nuit Blanche, and Black Cat Gallery. Crabtree is currently working on new ink drawings begun at a recent Artscape Gibraltar Point residency, as well as large-scale drawings showing at the Hamilton Artist Inc. Gallery in February 2017.

Mia Sandhu is a multidisciplinary artist, currently residing in Toronto, Canada. Sandhu received her BFA from NSCAD University in 2009. Her paper and gouache/watercolour, based works explore her fascination with cultural hybridity, gender, sexuality, familial and personal narratives. Recently completing a two month residency through the Hamilton Artists Inc. Cotton Factory Residency Program, she was able to create much of the work on display in this exhibition. Sandhu’s work has exhibited in Toronto, Kingston, Halifax and Hamilton.