Selected Work
A Feeling of A Feeling - The Plumb, Toronto
https://www.avalonmott.com/afeeling
a feeling
is effervescent. An embodied reaction born in our brains and spread to the tips of our limbs. It is joy and sorrow and love and despair.
of a feeling
that is intangible. Unable to be articulated by words but pass along by generations of gestures. It is inherited and lives alongside us; sometimes as intimately as a strand of hair and sometimes as distant as a forgotten photo album on a shelf.
Through the site-specific installation works of mihyun maria kim, Jackson Klie, and Gillian Toliver, a feeling of a feeling seeks to examine how we coalesce with untranslatable affects that are bestowed upon us by way of identity. Themes of translucency, translation and fragmentation are brought forward by the artists as they employ gestural responses to the inefficacy of language as a way of communicating with themselves. In this, the exhibition space extends to a place of conversation to delve into a feeling of a feeling.
The Grotto - Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto
https://www.avalonmott.com/thegrotto
Somewhere between here and there, near and far, north and south, east and west, nowhere and somewhere, The Grotto exists. It is elusive, relying entirely on soft architecture to gesture towards elements of life that feel familiar. A movement or form or sound or visual. The Grotto begs to engage tension, the feeling of the uncanny that reveals itself when the intersection of waking life and a dreamed world is held in paralysis. This exhibition engages the works of four artists; Abby Kettner, Danan Lake, Ghisland Sutherland-Timm and Ramolen Laruan to provide a latticed network of anchor points that usher the viewer in their experience of the Grotto on display. Curated by Avalon Mott
a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. - Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto
Featuring works by Ella Gonzalez, Meichen Waxer, and Meg Ross; a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end, curated by Avalon Mott, aims to encourage a positioning of exhibitionary affect. This curatorial methodology places the viewer at the center of the exhibition, and fosters the space of potential for contemplation and curiosity between the artwork on display and the viewer.
Through a heightened relationship to site specificity, the works exhibited encourage the viewer to approach them intuitively. This fosters an emotional relationship to the pieces that is highly individual, while providing a bridge of understanding to the larger concepts explored by each artist. Themes of nostalgia, reflection and desire are omni-present throughout the works.
PROCESS - 205 Richmond, Toronto
Process features new works by Beverley Freedman, Erin Stripe, mihyun maria kim, Reshmi Bisessar, Sara Shoghi, and Vicky Talwar, that were created as part of an ArtScape residency collaboration with OCAD U in Summer 2022. The artist’s works are representative of current themes and investigations occurring in their individual practices, but all respond to the idea of process. This notion of process speaks to the work of the artist in creating an artwork; conception, experimentation, revision, articulation, finalization. This work is generally confined to the studio and not welcomed into the gallery.
PROCESS aims to explore the potential for engagement that occurs when these elements are allowed to exist in an exhibited work and be presented in a gallery space. The works on view ask for viewer activation, and encourage play, rather than rely on passive viewing in their display.
Something 2 Say
Something to Say is an online exhibition curated by Avalon Mott, Kashfia Arif, Luke Whittaker and Samuel McGuire. The exhibition explores the theme of Art and Accessibility by showcasing the role of the curator as a facilitator of experience, opening a space for learning in relation to the artworks and concepts that are on view.
Exhibiting works from artists Sana Khan, Casper Sutton-Fosman, Laura Butler, Nahun Flores, Paulete Poitras, and Veronica Waechter, Something to Say aims to explore how affect can aid in the experience of art. By offering different perspectives and presentation models the exhibition opens a space for each viewer to have an impactful experience with the exhibition. As a curatorial research exhibition, it is a collaboration between curator, artist and audience, supported by the virtual space.
Selected Works, Tobias Zielony - Goethe Institute
In conjunction with Books & Brötchen: 'The Great Nowitzki', a selection of images from the book 'The Great Nowitzki' have been selected for display.
These images animate the writing of author Thomas Pletzinger throughout the 'The Great Nowitzki: Basketball and the meaning of life', and in turn, the newly opened AirSpace at the Goethe Institute Toronto.
After School Special - Art At Kafka’s
A photographic exhibition featuring image based works by eight Emily Carr University of Art + Design alumni; Adam Stenhouse, Eleni Nikoletsos of Hello Aura, Avalon Mott, Isaac Thomas, Jeff Downer, Jon Spooner, Lauren Ray, and Noah Spivak. The work intends to expand the photograph’s practices to introduce how their relationship with the photographic medium, and the concepts they are investigating, have evolved since graduation.
This is the first Kafka’s exhibit to happen at two the locations simultaneously: Main Street & Great Northern Way.
The Show - Emily Carr University of Art + Design
The Show is Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s annual graduation showcase. This exhibition represents their nine undergraduate programs, as well as three graduate programs, with works that span disciplines in design, media art and fine arts.
Do you Dream of Sunshine When You Sleep? - FIELD Contemporary
Do You Dream of Sunshine When You Sleep? focuses on the relationship between light, atmosphere, and healing. Using both art and design, Campbell + Killough have constructed an experiential environment that explores the healing properties of light and form through photography and sculpture. The placement of objects and their orientation visually guides the viewer into a fully curated experience, and, through the juxtaposition of furniture and sculpture with photographic prints, the viewer will be able to experience two-dimensional impressions of light with three-dimensional experiences of light. Do You Dream of Sunshine When You Sleep? calls for the viewer to sit, reflect, heal, and frame the world around them.
Presented with Capture Photography Festival.
Asking For It - FIELD Contemporary
Patryk Stasieczek’s solo exhibition Asking for It is the result of an ongoing photographic investigation into an embodied material practice toward the occurrence of an event. Within photography’s background, an event is considered an artifactual witness of an operation, as it provides access through the delineation of a trace on some form of light-sensitized material. The photograph itself becomes an extension of the body, being extended through calculated optics and limitations, as presented by the medium of photography. By looking at the photographic event in this way and accepting the limitations of the photographic practice, only a composite view is the phenomenon by which a record of things can be further examined.
Through this, the measurement of the body in images illustrates the evocative shift of photography today. As the movement toward the immaterial digitalism of photographic process progresses, photographs are further situated as an anticipated function of events through their mediated reliability, which in their technological accessibility have further propelled the photographic act towards that of instant image-expression and consumption.
Stasieczek takes the idea of an immaterial photographic production back into the darkroom and produces compositional light paintings (photogram collages) within the disembodied space of complete darkness. He composes images using a variety of lighting materials and digital technologies, coupled with sensitized photographic surfaces, allowing for his body to calibrate the exposure and gesture. The resulting photographic traces hold an intentionality that is a direct response to the spatial parameters of their composition and are further informed by the legacy of production knowledge located in the body. This method of production is distilled in the installation and configuration of the photographs as image-objects and light-objects, within a physical environment.
This exhibition consists of photographic light paintings, digital C-prints that capture the interference of digital image technologies, and a deconstructed lightbox work.
Presented with Capture Photography Festival.
Olympic Village Canada Line Station - Vancouver
The photographs on view are by ECUAD photography graduates Jeff Downer, Bahar Habibi, Caroline Halley, Shannon McCubbin, and David Peters.
Whether analog or digital photography, or a synthesis of the two, the works address the idea of space in relation to environment, both from a physical standpoint and a state of mind. The representation of space is well suited to the photographic medium, whereby the still image, when perceived by the viewer, becomes a place for contemplation. These works engage different notions surrounding everyday environments that we otherwise might only give a fleeting glance as we move through them.
Locally Examined - No.3 Road Art Columns
The circular backlit display cases that make up the No. 3 Road Art Columns are located at the base of the concrete piers that support the Canada Line guide-way at Aberdeen and Lansdowne Stations. These unique displays showcase artwork by visual artists who work in 2D media and are part of the City’s and the Richmond Public Art Program's commitment to enhance the No. 3 Road streetscape.
Locally Examined presents the work of Amanda Arcuri, Adam Stenhouse, and Grayson Richards. All three photographers have created new series of lens based works that respond to the site specificity of the No.3 Road Art Columns location.
Locate - Gallery 295
Locate, explores how we establish a sense of place amidst increasingly binary notions of transience and permanence. Featuring work by emerging Vancouver photographers Andrew Jenkins, Avalon Mott , Bahar Habibi, David Peters, Jeff Downer, Shannon McCubbin, and Tess Sereda.
You Came Here By Chance. - 221A
This exhibition features work by recent Emily Carr University Photography graduates; Adria Leduc, Andy Jenkins, Avalon Mott, Caelan Warnock, Caroline Halley, David Peters, Jeff Downer, Olivia Lowe, Sewari Campillo, and Shannon McCubbin. The images displayed all aim to speak to a sense of place from a physical standpoint and a state of mind. As the viewers spend time with the images, it is intended that they will begin to think about the relationships they have with the places they occupy.