Mystic Toolkit
Isa Carrillo, Alex Coma, Hector Jiménez Castillo, Marigold Santos, Jennifer Murphy, OMSK Social Club
Curator: Anaïs Castro
From January 25 to March 8, 2020
The Stewart Hall Art Gallery is pleased to present Mystic Toolkit, an exhibition curated by Anaïs Castro that brings together the work of six artists: Isa Carrillo, Alex Coma, Hector Jiménez Castillo, Jennifer Murphy, OMSK Social Club, and Marigold Santos. These artists come from various parts of the world, including Berlin, Calgary, Guadalajara, Montreal and Toronto. Their work encompasses a wide range of practices, from drawings to installations, embroidery, and even board games.
Isa Carrillo presents a series of embroideries representing numerology and geometric portraits of various inspirational feminist figures such as Hilma af Klint, Maria Sabina, Simone Weil, and Frances Yates. In Jennifer Murphy’s collages and sculptural works, there is a strong sense of animism: the belief that objects, places and creatures possess a distinct spiritual essence. Her work places these energies together into compositions that spur all kinds of cosmic connections. Two participants, an artist and a collective, use game boards in their practice: Mexican artist Hector Jiménez Castillo revisits the Ouija board, while OMSK Social Club’s board games include card sets and crystals used to reveal to the players their psychic portrait. Believing in the cosmic impact of the universe’s complex geometry, Alex Coma draws his inspiration from the fateful sky. His carefully planned installation is intended to point to spaces beyond the gallery: planets and stars above us that possess an incredible energy charge and whose cosmic movements influence life on earth. As for Marigold Santos’s drawings, they are enigmatic hand symbols that spell out letters.
Without aiming to convert the public to these activities, Mystic Toolkit is an exhibition that examines the resurgence of the mystical and shows how it motivates the practice of today’s working creatives.
VERNISSAGE: Sunday, January 26, 2 p.m.
