A Hope to Wish For on A Star | Erika Germain

Latitude 53 invites you to A Hope to Wish For on a Star by Erika Germain open March 7‑April 19. 

Opening Reception: Friday, March 7 from 7 – 9PM

This exhibition continues an ever-adventuring process of translation, where invented systems correlate colours to letters of the alphabet to re-write textual sources into a visual space. Every letter A is a stroke of cadmium red, every letter B cobalt blue, and so on, until what was once a written text is relocated to a new dialect of abstraction and material. This movement of meaning from one language to another offers the painted space as a field of world-building, with surfaces taking on the roles of new and unknown cultures to house these invented lexicons. The contexts created around these translated writings — backgrounds of accumulated small brushstrokes — perform the labour of a devotional search for understanding. ⁠

This series of paintings and ceramic works is an anthology of texts, including personal writings, collected offerings from past rituals, and published literary works that consider themes of love, hate, hope, and fear. Together, these collected texts offer a space where the intimacies of sincere feeling can be shared and cared for by one another. ⁠

Erika invites you to participate in a ritual of exchange. Consider in advance an offering of love, hate, fear, or hope.⁠ Writing materials will be supplied in the exhibit to create your offering and you are also welcome to bring meaningful objects that symbolize a love, a hate, a fear, or a hope to give as an offering.⁠