Artist: Jagdeep Raina
Exhibition title: I Promise
Venue: COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada
Date: October 25 – November 22, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and COOPER COLE, Toronto
COOPER COLE is pleased to present a solo exhibition featuring the works of Jagdeep Raina. This marks the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
I.
On any given block, in any given town there’s a building that used to be there, that isn’t there anymore. If your home is anything like my home, there’s probably an abundance of blocks like this, used-to-bes atop of used-to-bes. I lament that I’m at that age where my used-to-be’s out number my somethings.
II.
I’ve seen paradise & it had four walls & man, we used to dance all night There till the sun came up & Jose would do that spin that made it look like the very air was falling at his feet & one night we danced so hard that Elliott fell off his and couldn’t get back up & you and me would stumble home together, arms locked, still singing a song that had long stopped singing to us & we’d get There & collapse on our beds & talk until the talking turned to snoring like brothers do, cause we were brothers & I wonder how many brothers had done the same There before & that place isn’t our place anymore & i’m not even sure I could find my way back.
III.
The park where I had my first kiss is a used-to-be now too. A high school dare brought us there. Often, my mentor would tell me the story of the white boys that laid hands on him there. They were brough there for no reason other than that they were white, and he was not. The last time we spoke I told him that the park had been paved over.
He told me “Good riddance.”
— Cameron Granger
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991, Guelph, Canada) received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016 and is a 2017 graduate of the Skoweghan School of Painting and Sculpture. Raina has exhibited at Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Art Gallery of Guelph, Guelph; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Vancouver, Canada; Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis; Grice Bench, Los Angeles; Antenna Works, New Orleans; Rubin Museum of Art, New York, USA. Raina lives and works in Guelph, Canada.
Jagdeep Raina, I Promise, 2019, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto
Jagdeep Raina, I Promise, 2019, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto
Jagdeep Raina, I Promise, 2019, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto
Jagdeep Raina, Paradise Lost, 2019, Embroidered tapestry and Punjabi phulkari border on muslin, 18 x 30 in (45.7 x 76.2 cm)
Jagdeep Raina, Phiran, 2019, Embroidered tapestry and Punjabi phulkari border on muslin, 20 x 18 in (50.8 x 45.7 cm)
Jagdeep Raina, You migrate, we migrate, you displace, we displace, 2019, Mixed media on paper, 40 x 77.5 in (101.6 x 196.9 cm)
Jagdeep Raina, Everything I wish you had told me, 2019, Mixed media on paper, 30 x 66.5 in (76.2 x 168.9 cm)
Jagdeep Raina, I promise, 2019, Embroidered tapestry and Punjabi phulkari border on muslin, 9.5 x 9.5 in (24.1 x 24.1 cm)
Jagdeep Raina, My mother and my chachis beautiful solidarity, 2019, Embroidered tapestry and Punjabi phulkari border on muslin, 19 x 10 in (48.3 x 25.4 cm)