*Featured image: Installation view; A Path to Totality
A Path to Totality
A solo exhibition by Vicky Talwar
Curated by Samantha Jones
In-gallery: September 9 – November 18, 2023
Online: September 11 – December 1, 2023
Notice of temporary gallery location: Please be advised that this exhibition is in our temporary gallery at Aurora Town Hall (second floor), 100 John West Way, Aurora ON. Please follow the entry instructions as noted on the Gallery Info page in planning your visit.
How can I explore the interstitial space in between my Hindu and Canadian identities through materiality and colour? How can colour create embodied experiences? How do I as an artist use materiality and colour to navigate the visceral feelings of in-betweenness in my social identities? How does the experience of engaging with art affect our bodies?
These are all questions contemplated by artist Vicky Talwar in the process and research of her creative practice.
Talwar’s paintings are recognizable by their vibrant, evocative colours and dream-like, tactile surfaces. Layers of translucent media atop each canvas brings forth an illusory visual effect, with painted mala, abstract shapes, flowers, and other elements of nature dancing to the surface. Himalayan pink salt is utilized in the process for textural effects and symbolic meanings. Bordering somewhere between imagination and reality, works are unplanned and painted directly from the artist’s intuition.
At the root of Talwar’s process is sound energy healing therapy offered by Buddhist Monk Lama Jam of Five Wisdom’s Temple, Toronto. Vibrational sounds from the Tibetan Medical Singing Bowls within the sessions can offer relief from pain, stress, and the improvement of positive energy flow in different areas of the body. Talwar is interested in the emotional and therapeutic impact of sound gained from these sessions, and how they may influence her body’s movements and decisions in the creative process. Reflecting on her experience within these sessions, Talwar meditates on her identities as both Hindu and Canadian while at work, dialing in on feelings of cultural diaspora, disruption, and in-betweenness. Through her art, Talwar unlocks a safe space to sift through difficult but important thoughts and memories experienced on her path through life.
Accompanying Talwar’s paintings are three immersive installations, which each use Himalayan pink salt rocks as one of their main mediums. Mandalas, depicted in Opening into Transcendence, and A Return to Wholeness, are an essential symbol in Talwar’s practice. The bright colours of the salt within each mandala obtain their hue from dyes within her paintings:
Mandala in Sanskrit means circle and symbolizes unity and completeness.
I notice how the circular shape of my mandala installations makes me feel balanced
and I examine the salts’ spaces as they act as the interstitial space that I explore.
Listening to the healing Tibetan bowl sounds in my studio space has enabled me
to connect my emotions with the colours I work with when making the salt rocks.
Though the materials within each of the installations are reused across her exhibitions at different gallery spaces (most recently Inward Identities; Station Gallery, Whitby), they manifest in new ways every time. Intuition, meditation, and self-reflection; key elements in her painting processes, are utilised here: each final installation a reflection of Talwar’s mindset and the energies experienced in the process of installing.
A Path to Totality seeks to bring together the multi-media manifestations of Talwar’s research to form an immersive space for meditation and self-reflection, while encouraging others to contemplate on their own journey through life. Please join us on Thursday, September 14 from 7-9 pm for the opening reception. Entrance for this event is permitted through the Upper/North parking lot of Aurora Town Hall only. Opening remarks commence at 7:30 pm. The artist will be present, and light refreshments are provided. All are welcome.
Vicky Talwar is an interdisciplinary artist who draws upon her personal experience as a Hindu Canadian to produce painting, mixed media, performance, and installation artworks.
Talwar holds a BFA and MFA in Art, Media, & design from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCADU), as well as a Bachelor of Education from York University. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including Toronto, Canmore, Los Angeles, New York, the United Kingdom, and more. In completing MFA at OCADU, Talwar exhibited her solo thesis exhibition, Inward Identities, at Latcham Arts Centre. Recently, she exhibited her solo exhibition, Enlightened Mind at Station Gallery. She has also participated in multiple group and solo exhibitions, including Hashtag Gallery (Toronto), Elevation Gallery (Canmore, AB), and The Elaine Fleck Gallery (Toronto). In 2017, she was awarded the Juror’s Award for the Annual Juried Exhibition by Latcham Art Centre. Her work has been acquired in a permanent collection for international display by the Global Affairs Canada Visual Art Collection.
Virtual Gallery
September 11 – December 1, 2023
Explore the exhibition in this 360 Virtual Gallery. Feel like you’re there in person as you travel through the exhibition, seeing the scale of the artworks and how they speak to each other.
- Click or tap to explore and/or drag to look around
- Click on the blue circles for the label information for each artwork and click “View More” for the link to purchase
- If you are on a PC or Laptop, the virtual gallery is best viewed in full screen and using the Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers
- If you are on a cellphone, the virtual gallery is best viewed in landscape mode
Photo Gallery
- Click the thumbnail image to enlarge the image and to see the label information and link to purchase
- Use the arrows on either side of the enlarged image to scroll through the gallery
- For the best viewing experience, we recommend using a desktop computer and Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browser
