An exhibition by Carey Jernigan and Julia Campbell-Such
**Please note: Patternmaker will be closed to the public on Saturday, December 3rd and Saturday, December 10th**
Patternmakers have been crafting the original wooden forms for casting metal gears, pulleys, and machine parts since the industrial revolution. These beautiful and complex wooden objects are some of the most difficult things to make out of wood, and require a tremendous amount of skill and time. But metal parts can now be made directly from drawings on computer directed machines that work thousands of times faster than the human hand. As traditional ways of making are replaced by rapid, computerized ones, our experiences of production and work change faster still. We respond to the rhythms of the technologies we work with; we adapt, we fight back, we play to pass the time. The pace at which we work is the pace at which we live.
In Patternmaker, artists Carey Jernigan and Julia Campbell-Such interrogate the social, cultural and psychological consequences of this change of pace. Through kinetic and wooden sculptures and audio-video works that draw inspiration from both contemporary technologies and the machinery of Victorian factories, the artists play with the idea of work as a site of social and economic power, where social roles are performed and culture is articulated. This project will also allow visitors to contribute their own stories and descriptions of the speed of their work, experiences of stress and calm and how they have thrived, struggled or resisted in the face of the changing pace of work.
Join us for a slate of auxiliary programs, which include an artist’s walkthrough of the exhibition, a dance performance by Amanda Acorn, and more.
About the artists:
Carey Jernigan is an interdisciplinary artist, sculptor, and furniture maker based in Toronto, Canada. Her work often features wood, light, and memory: exploring obsolete industrial processes and the people and places they shape. She seeks to explore the stories told through the material objects that industry, politics, and social systems leave behind. Carey often works collaboratively and has participated in several public art festivals including Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Artspin, Long Winter, the AGO’s First Thursdays, Art Now at the TOAE, Supercrawl, Hamilton Winterfest, and Nocturne: Art at Night. Her work has been shown at the Harbourfront Centre, Parkdale Film & Video Showcase, the Khyber Centre for the Arts, the Anna Leonowens Gallery, Eyelevel Gallery and the Nova Scotia Public Archives. In 2014 Carey spent a month in Porto, Portugal as a resident at De Liceiras 18. In 2015 she was the recipient of the RBC Emerging Artists Studio Setup Award through Craft Ontario.
Julia Campbell-Such is a Toronto-based furniture maker with a graduate degree in History and Philosophy of Religions (2010). She has studied restoration and traditional cabinetmaking techniques, and has a particular interest in material culture and the history of work. In 2014 she began collaborating with artist Carey Jernigan and they have since exhibited their work together at Harbourfront Centre and at Hamilton Winterfest. Julia is currently preparing for a career in art conservation, with a focus on the preservation of antique furniture and wooden objects.
The artists would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council in the production and presentation of Patternmaker. This exhibition’s auxiliary programs are supported by ArcelorMittal Dofasco.
Image: Sera Senakovicz