Being in isolation and solitude for two years has been a time of vacillation between real and imagined histories, of recalling memories of childhood and family paradigms through photographs and oral histories from family.
I was born a queer and gender non-comforming individual in the small Saskatchewan town of Yorkton in 1985. I lived in an unsafe community and through the harassment of my peers and social circle for first looking and acting like a “girl”, and later for being what was categorized as, not in reclamation of myself, but put upon me by others, as “gay”.
This series is an expression of these memories and dynamics through visual mediums of drawing and painting. My exhibition will invite the viewer to imagine a place where they can no longer trust their own memories. A state where everything is at once confusing, familial, and familiar.
Alternate Scenarios describes a personal story and lived experience through a representational style in bold colour, showing familiar figurative depictions of social and family encounters.
The Godfrey Dean Art Gallery is proud to curate and present this new art exhibition by Ryan Wonsiak. Alternate Scenarios is on display April 3 – May 27, 2023.
Opening reception and drawing jam on April 1, 7:00pm.
Special thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this exhibition.
