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Ilavska
A Celebration of the Lost Arts & Crafts of Grandmother

Premiering Feb 23 -25th
Come Up to My Room, Designer Showcase Room 201
Gladstone Hotel, Toronto Canada

Continuing Feb 26 - March 18th
Magic Pony Gallery 694 Queen St West
Toronto ON Canada

Magic Pony is pleased to present Ilavska , a celebration of the lost arts and crafts of Grandmother. Featuring installation, textile design, painting, collage and soft-sculpture, this exhibition showcases a diverse group of contemporary multi-disciplinary artists and designers who will take viewers on a captivating visit to Grandma’s.

Ilavska was inspired by a pilgrimage into Eastern Europe to visit Grandma. In times of subsistence living under communist rule, women created beautiful objects and environments out of limited resources. Crochet, knitting, embroidery and textiles were executed with painstaking and time-consuming care, and became treasured objects in the home. As both feminine and feminist practice, these subversive gestures represented women’s skills, pleasures and desires; as each stitch became a record of richly-lived experiences and histories.

Ilavska explores a new generation of artists who integrate a deep appreciation for the craft tradition and aesthetic into modern techniques and styles; an approach which reveals scepticism toward today’s instantly-gratifying, disposable culture. As a re-valuing and re-imagining of historically feminine pursuits, the artwork of Ilavksa evokes a weighty sense of time, memory and nostalgia. Seamlessly juxtaposing artwork with found antique furniture, objects and decoration, the exhibit blurs past and present tense, and collapses the distinctions between “art,” “craft” and “design.”

Including Sonja Ahlers, Lydia Klenck, Stephen Appleby-Barr, Kozue Kitchens, Tania Sanhueza, Melinda Josie, Noel Middleton and Trudie Cheng, Ilavska will premiere at the Come Up To My Room designer showcase held at the Gladstone Hotel from February 23-25. The exhibition will then continue in expanded form at Magic Pony from February 26-March 18, 2007.

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Selected artwork

Ilavska Installation, Gladstone Hotel

Ilavska Installation, Gladstone Hotel

Ilavska Installation, Gladstone Hotel

Ilavska Installation, Gladstone Hotel

Ilavska Installation, Noel Middleton

Ilavska Installation, Gladstone Hotel

Lydia Klenck

Lydia Klenck

Sonja Ahlers

Stephen Appleby-Barr

Stephen Appleby-Barr

Stephen Appleby-Barr

Sonja Ahlers

Lydia Klenck

Sonja Ahlers

Melinda Josie

Tania Sanhueza

Melinda Josie

Lydia Klenck

Stephen Appleby-Barr

Trudie Cheng