Artist: Nadia Belerique
Exhibition title: There’s A Hole In The Bucket
Venue: Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Date: September 20 – November 2, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
So fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.
Daniel Faria Gallery is pleased to present There’s A Hole In The Bucket, Nadia Belerique’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.
Employing photographic strategies in her sculptural installations, Nadia Belerique stages a tenuous relationship between the physical world and its representations. In There’s A Hole In The Bucket, images mined from her practice and from the internet are layered with, and interrupted by, various iterations of stained glass, soldered lead, steel and wood. This body of work is motivated by notions of separation, whether that be the distance between object and representation, the parting of surfaces, or the disparity of depicted subjects. Pointing to the areas in between things, Belerique investigates what small amounts of depth can hold.
The materials we are presented with suggest different states of emergency – political, ecological and psychological. Fire doors offer escape through containment. Towels sop up leaks but barely sop up floods. The weather shifts like a bad mood. Glass balls on lightning rods burst so that we know they have been struck, physical evidence that we have narrowly avoided disaster. Weaving together these elements with personal indexes and symbols, Belerique explores the links between our external structures and our psychic ones. The house and the head are both spaces where the maintenance of privacy is enacted, where identities are formed and memories are stored. Neither are entirely guarded against intruders. There is suspicion abundant in the apertures of these structures, from which we observe and are in turn observed.
In Belerique’s work perception is slippery. Here, stained glass is lit not by the sun, but by the light from a photograph. Protagonists’ bodies are made present through their absence, and narratives are built on traces and clues that suggest movement despite the stillness of objects. The view out the window is also a view from under the table. This instability of the senses begs the question, “Can observation change the very nature of things?” In quantum physics particles act differently when they are being measured, when they are watched. Aware that there are gaps between what exists and what is seen, Belerique questions the efficacy of the tools on which we rely to close them. Rather than seek to repair those gaps, she holds them open and allows things to fall through. Henry ends up back where he began, with a hole in the bucket, asking Liza how to fix it.
Nadia Belerique received her MFA from the University of Guelph. Recent solo exhibitions include On Sleep Stones at Grazer Kunstverein (2018), The Weather Channel at Oakville Galleries (2018), and Bed Island at Daniel Faria Gallery (2017). Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Tensta Konsthall, Spånga, Sweden; Kunsthalle, Wein, Vienna; Vie d’ange, Montreal; The Power Plant, Toronto and Arsenal Contemporary, New York. Belerique was long-listed for the 2017 Sobey Art Award and has completed residencies at Walk & Talk (The Azores, Portugal) and Fogo Island Arts (Fogo Island, Newfoundland), among others. She lives and works in Toronto.
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, Mona, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, Mona, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, Mona, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, Mona, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, House Head, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, House Head, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, House Head, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 6 inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, Neighbourhood Watch, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 35 ½ inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, Body Farm, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 83 x 35 ½ x 4 inches
Nadia Belerique, Body Farm, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 83 x 35 ½ x 4 inches
Nadia Belerique, Body Farm, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 83 x 35 ½ x 4 inches
Nadia Belerique, Body Farm, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 83 x 35 ½ x 4 inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, Yellow Jacket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 8 inches
Nadia Belerique, Yellow Jacket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 8 inches
Nadia Belerique, Yellow Jacket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, found objects, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 8 inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, My Middle Name, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Hybrid Horses For Your Future, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Hybrid Horses For Your Future, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Flood Frame, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Flood Frame, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, Eels, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Eels, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Love In The Barn, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Love In The Barn, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, Double Slit, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Double Slit, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 1 ¾ inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 1 ¾ inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 1 ¾ inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 1 ¾ inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 1 ¾ inches
Nadia Belerique, There’s A Hole In The Bucket, 2019, Fire door, stained glass, lead, 79 ½ x 35 ½ x 1 ¾ inches
Nadia Belerique, Mom’s Shoe, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches
Nadia Belerique, Blinds, 2019, Inkjet photograph mounted to dibond, stained glass, lead, artists frame, 33 ½ x 25 ½ x 2 inches