Centre [3] Main Gallery
February 23 - April 6, 2024
“Lake Poems'' is an exhibition of local artist Rebecca Casalino’s hybrid practice of poetry, printmaking and drawing. Silkscreen prints featuring Casalino’s poetry wrap around the space connected by a continuous blue line representing the lakeshore. This gestural line is featured on the individual prints and is painted on the walls of the space to create continuous flow through the space. “Lake Poems” (chapbook/zine) is a set of fifteen poems written from 2017-2021 while Casalino lived in downtown Toronto and central Hamilton. These poems often contain references to Lake Ontario which Casalino sees as a connecting body that brings her closer to her chosen family living along the lakeshore. Casalino performs her poetry aloud in the gallery to engage with audiences and breathe life into written text. The chapbook “Lake Poems” will be available for free download as a digital zine to give context to the poems installed in the gallery.
Rebecca Casalino is an artist, writer and curator based in Hamilton, Ontario. She is a queer Italian-Canadian settler, maintaining her practices through deeply personal collaborations in her community and sheer willpower. Using feminist, crip and queer* sensibilities Casalino’s work is semi-autobiographical employing nostalgia and humour to describe the circumstances around her. Her writing practice incorporates poetry, short prose and Fluxus scores. Casalino uses descriptive imagery to create a sense of nostalgia and longing for the mundane. Focusing on her lived experience, Casalino’s work includes references to cityscapes often describing local architecture and infrastructure. Her approach to visual art and text is rooted in conceptual practices and ranges in mediums from video to installation. Her cross-disciplinary approach tackles quotidian topics like housing, mental health, long-distance friendships, and everyday injuries. She connects with audiences through the shared woes, hopes and fears expressed in her art. Her current artistic practice focuses on blending gestural drawings and poetry to best communicate with readers. Casalino is inspired by public transit, long walks and short showers.
