Andrea Kastner is a Hamilton-based painter who makes work about the sacred nature of rejected things. Her paintings of basements, alleyways and trash bring to light the hidden underbelly of things we seek to ignore.
“Rupture is an exhibition about tearing the fabric of everyday life, about moments where tension grabs hold of the frayed edges of our solidly constructed spaces.
Since moving to Hamilton a year ago, I have been watching the building and unbuilding of my little corner of the city on a daily basis. The collection of images I have amassed include the traces on brick walls where the neighbouring houses have been torn out, the back of a church being rebuilt as condominiums, the side of apartments being ripped into by heavy equipment. My paintings born out of these images are a meditation on the pouring of concrete and the smashing of walls. They are composed based on collages, adding a layer of the surreal to spaces that are already cracked open in some way.
A rupture is a failure of materials loaded in tension; a breaking apart, a state of being broken apart. Collage itself involves an initial rupture, a puncturing of the integrity of the image, followed by a lengthly struggle to stitch back together what had been broken through a creation of new meanings and new juxtapositions. My paintings are trying to look at these scars, these gaping holes in the sides of the buildings around me, and trying to mend them like a broken heart.” – Andrea Kastner
La rupture est une exposition sur la déchirure du tissu de la vie quotidienne, sur les moments où la tension nous garde aux abords effilochés de nos espaces solidement construits. Depuis mon arrivée à Hamilton il y a un an, chaque jour je regarde le construction et le déconstruction de mon petit coin de ville. La collection d’images que j’ai amassé comprend des traces sur les murs de brique où les maisons voisines ont été arrachées, l’arrière d’une église en cours de reconstruction en condominiums, du côté des appartements déchiré par de la machinerie lourde. Mes peintures nées de ces images sont une méditation sur la coulée du béton et l’écrasement des murs. Ils sont basées sur des collages, en ajoutant une couche de surréalisme à des espaces qui sont déjà fissurés, ouverts en quelque sorte.
Exhibition June 4 – June 25 2016