3 April—10 May 1997

Ghostwriter #5

Mercer Union is pleased to present Ghostwriter 5, the last in a series of five project room exhibitions which posit art making and writing as interlocked processes. Each exhibition is a collaborative project formed by the
fusion of the Ghostwriter/curator and the artist(s) he/she chooses to work with.

Each Ghostwriter was selected based on their own visual and written productions, which reflect a diversity of disciplines and communities.

The distilled group presentation of individual explorations delves into the mysticisms of science and women's manipulations of technology to undermine its own dominant language. Through the slow and intense labour of transcribing a repeated, cryptic, computer-generated code onto cloth by hand-stitching, Michelle Gay inserts her own disruptive presence into the digital terrain. Janice Kerbel plays with suspension of disbelief and acts of deception by reconstructing herself in the role of the magician and the femme fatale; she conjures up the slippery trick of the disappearing act as part of her craft.

Evelyn Von Michalofski's potently emptied articles of clothing are combined with a brimming container of St. John's wort oil to dispel disturbances and to heal the chemical and spiritual body. Together with Millie Chen's writing, which interests physically and conceptually with the artworks, this exhibition will work upon the viewer as visual and textual incantations for acts of incorporeal transformation.

Information

Millie Chen has exhibited extensively throughout Ontario included the "Young Contemporaries "97" at the London Regional Art & Historical Museums and the Gairloch Gallery in Oakville, 1996.


Michelle Gay has had her CD's, bookworks and installations exhibited throughout North America in 1996, including the New York Short Film Festival and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery.


Janice Kerbel has exhibited her solo exhibition antidote at YYZ in 1996 and has recently completed her Masters of Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London, England.


Evelyn Von Michalofski has collaborated with Millie Chen on the "Yurtopia" projects which have been exhibited at Open Studio and the Red Head Gallery in Toronto and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in 1995.

About the Series

Ghostwriter is a series of five exhibitions that are formed by a collaboration between a ghostwriter and an artist of their choosing.