The Drawn Goodness of Theresa Sapergia

January 4th, 2009

Theresa Sapergia is an undeniably talented draftswoman, and on top of this, her subjects are all terrifically engaging. Case in point below, with two great examples: top models with bling so big it hides their faces and various angles of the best pug I’ve ever laid my pretty and almost-but-not-really emerald green eyes on.

Her streamlined painterly drawings are definitely worth the look, but I’ll admit I have a particular affinity for her more drawerly paintings (as she calls them). It’s always a bit of a tricky situation to discuss drawing and ‘where it stands in contemporary art’, so I tend to often come to the conclusion that I should just evaluate drawings based on my own (potentially contrived and limited) taste in themes and aesthetics. Sapergia draws cute animals and hot-looking people with a touch of humour, and the idea that the body is, as she writes, “a site of complex social negotiations, assumptions and exchanges of power”; so she’s all good in my book.

The Concordia University graduate has exhibited in New York City, at AIR Gallery and Eli Klein, and across Canada in Vancouver, Toronto & Montreal. She currently lives in Nelson, BC where she has a tattoo shop. She will be exhibiting Canada Day, her reflections “on a post-apocalyptic Canada where animals have over taken (or taken back) nature,” at the Parisian Laundry from January 9 to February 14, 2009. While you’re there, make sure you take a look at the Bunker and Gallery 2 of Parisian Laundry, where engineer, visual artist and Concordia Graduate Geoffrey Jones will be exhibiting at the same time. The vernissage of this promising show will take place on Thursday, January 8, 2009 between 6 and 9pm. You can check its facebook event page for more information. I know I did, because otherwise this entire paragraph wouldn’t exist.