{"id":38656,"date":"2026-08-06T17:09:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38656"},"modified":"2026-08-06T17:09:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:09:28","slug":"meditations-on-grief-and-memory-come-to-cultural-centre-in-new-exhibitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/meditations-on-grief-and-memory-come-to-cultural-centre-in-new-exhibitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditations on grief and memory come to Cultural Centre in new exhibitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meditations on grief and memory are bound for the Aurora Cultural Centre this month as two acclaimed Canadian artists bring powerful new installations to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up first is \u201cThey are loved \u2013 an epidemic of grief,\u201d by Tracey-Mae Chambers, a prominent textile artist who previously installed a work at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex and hosted by the Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new work by the Metis artist, an evocative look at the lives lost to the opioid crisis, came after Chambers lost her own son to overdose in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was trying to figure out a way to speak with her work about mental health and addictions, and she came to start considering textiles and their ability to represent people and also their comforting effect,\u201d says Ashlyn Gregory, Gallery Manager for the Aurora Cultural Centre. \u201cUsing textiles that have been donated from families who have experienced loss in the opioid crisis in Canada, she started making this body of work. It consists of the donated textiles, which she seam-rips and then ties together to create this sort of cellular structure and this structure is meant to represent a saguaro cactus skeleton, all about the strength that is still there even when the plant dies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a shape that she and her son encountered together on a trip to Arizona and it ties all back to her relationship with grief and her son.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gregory first saw \u201cThey are loved \u2013 an epidemic of grief\u201d at Artist Project in Toronto and said she was greatly moved by the installation and the way it tells stories of the individuals represented, and also its ability to be a springboard for conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition will open to the public at an opening reception set for Thursday, August 13, from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m., and will run through November 15. On Monday, August 31, Chambers will speak at an event hosted by the Cultural Centre and CAYR Community Connections, a York Region-based organization specializing in support for people who use substances, are living with HIV or Hepatitis C, or have lost a loved one to HIV or Hepatitis C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful way to represent something that is so hard to talk about, and what a great way to get people to talk about it using art and creating a piece that is so dynamic and completely changes the space,\u201d says Gregory. \u201cIt\u2019s a really moving, beautiful work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The artist] is also welcoming donations from families who have lost a loved one, and if people would loke to donate a textile, and she has a catalogue of textiles she has collected for people who maybe don\u2019t have a textile to represent their loved one, they can reach out if they would like to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As different textiles from different backgrounds come together to tell a common story in Chambers\u2019 work, local artists are also bringing together different materials to tell stories of their own in a new exhibition in the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s Great Hall Gallery. Also opening on August 13 as part of the Centre\u2019s fall reception, and running through November 15, this exhibition of works from seven York Region Artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Collage exhibition really came to be just because I\u2019ve been noticing trends at art fairs and different things in the cultural scene that collage is really making \u2013 maybe \u2018comeback\u2019 is not the right word as it\u2019s always been there, but there\u2019s sort of a resurgence in the amount of collage that I\u2019m seeing,\u201d says Gregory. \u201cIt\u2019s such a dynamic practice because you\u2019re taking bits from something else and bringing them together to create an entirely new artwork. It\u2019s a great way for people to work through their understanding of themselves, identity, self-perception, by bringing different pieces together to create a collage of lived experience and cultural influences to explore identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a theme that extends to the next exhibition, \u201cArnie Lipsey: Past. Tense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This show, which runs August 27 \u2013 October 31, draws on family photographs which Lipsey re-interprets into \u201cfantastical compositions that bring into focus the cultural, historical, and personal circumstances that linger beyond the frame.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSuspended somewhere between the now and then, Arnie Lipsey\u2019s narrative portraits navigate the porous spaces between inherited memory and imagination,\u201d says the Centre. \u201cUsing painting to trace a family history shaped by immigration, trauma, and silence, the artist leans into the surreal to bridge a gap between what is remembered and what can only be imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a second-generation Jewish Canadian, Lipsey paints from a position of \u2018postmemory\u2019 \u2013 a term that describes the ways in which the trauma of previous generations is internalized through stories, images, and cultural memory. His parents, European Jews who immigrated to Montreal before World War II, escaped Nazi persecution but lost many relatives in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough complex symbolic language and unexpected juxtaposition, Lipsey\u2019s work reveals the interpretive layers through which family narratives are continually re-imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hailing his \u201cbeautiful narrative portraits,\u201d Gregory says the Centre is always looking to tell stories of diverse perspectives from many cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough his work is very specific to him and his experience, I think everyone will be able to see themselves in his portraits and their own relationship with family and inheritance,\u201d she says. \u201cArnie has a really interesting process for how he creates his works. He works from black and white photographs of his family. He has boxes of these old photographs, and when he’s wanting to paint, he goes through them and finds a photograph, and then he fills in the background and the composition with fantastical elements that are surreal, that help tell the story, giving the photograph context, like what was going on in his family at the time. Through this symbolic language and the surreal juxtaposition, he reveals the layers of family narrative, so what he remembers, what he has been told, and how he fills in those gaps. It’s really complex, very intriguing work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think people will walk away thinking about their own family history and how it’s been mediated throughout the years, thinking about things that your grandparents have told you, your parents, and then how you internalize them based on your own experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lipsey\u2019s exhibition will open to the public on August 27, with an opening reception open to the public from 6.30 \u2013 8.30 p.m. The Aurora Cultural Centre will also host In Conversation with Arnie Lipsey on Wednesday, October 28, hosted by Gregory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about these and other upcoming Aurora Cultural Centre gallery exhibitions and associated events, visit auroraculturalcentre.ca\/upcoming-exhibitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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