Pageant is Natalie King’s solo exhibition centred on facets of (re)presentation and presence; a proactive measure to take up space and be seen in a magnificent light with dignity and prominence. King’s paintings parade a dazzling body of work experienced through a lens of pageantry and flamboyance that is presented as an invitation to witness the strength that is drawn from bold Queer Indigenous pride. Poised around the spirited painting Miss Gay Ojibwe, King’s work emanates joy, self-reflection, queerness and Indigeneity. The exhibition imparts King’s colorful palette, which camouflages and teases out binaries embedded in the façade of beauty, to spark conversations of desire, belonging and reverence. Pageant embraces the occasion to display necessary, transformational shifts for societal values and norms to adapt through the intentions to invoke a fluid form of place-making, with a vulnerable sense of world-building that is, at the same time, pleasure-centred and working through dialogues of resistance and joy.
EXHIBITION: February 25 – April 16, 2022
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, March 11, 2022 | 7:00 P.M.
Artist Bio:
Natalie King is a queer interdisciplinary Anishinaabe artist, facilitator and member of Timiskaming First Nation. King’s interdisciplinary arts practice ranges from video, painting, sculpture and installation as well as community engagement, curation and arts administration. King is currently a Programming Coordinator at Xpace Cultural Centre in tsí Tkaròn:to.
Often involving portrayals of queer femmes, King’s works are about embracing the ambiguity and multiplicities of identity within the Anishinaabe queer femme experience(s) and futurities. King’s artistic practice engages and operates from a firmly critical, anti-colonial, non-oppressive and future-bound perspective, reclaiming the realities of lived lives through frameworks of desire and survivance.
Curator Bio:
Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawake, is a curator, Associate Professor and the Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts and Science at OCAD University. His institutional and independent curatorial career spans 30 years in community, museums, artist run centres and galleries. Rice’s writing on contemporary Onkwehón:we art has been published in numerous periodicals and exhibition catalogues, and he has lectured widely. In 2021, Rice was appointed Curator, Indigenous Art at Onsite Gallery (OCAD) and is currently developing two public art commissions as the Indigenous Public Art Curator with Waterfront Toronto.
Instagram: @centre3_
Facebook: @centre3
Twitter: @centre3
Accessibility: Our 173 James North location is partially physically accessible. We have a level entrance leading to our shop, information desk, galleries, washroom and traditional print studio. Unfortunately, we do not have automatic doors or an elevator. We are working toward becoming a physically accessible space in the future.
Image Description: A smiling figure with red lips, long black hair and green eyes, wearing a blue outift with a medicine wheel and a sash across their chest that says, “Ms. Gay Ojibwe”. The figure sits on top of a colourful creature with a pink sky, rainbow and stars behind them.
Media Contact: info@centre3.com
Centre[3] for Artistic + Social Practice
173 James Street North
Hamilton, Ontario
L8R 2K9
905.524.5084
The Artist would like to acknowledge that all works have been made with the support of the Toronto Arts Council.
This exhibition is generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Hamilton.
