Monika Napier

2 March 2007 - 7 April 2007
Opening Reception 2 March 2007 8pm

NOTE: A free shuttle bus will depart from Mercer Union at 6:45 pm to Oakville Galleries for the Monika Napier exhibition mad, mad, mad world. The bus will leave Gairloch Gardens at approximately 9:45 pm and drive passengers back to Mercer Union.

Mercer Union presents two exhibitions with new work by Monika Napier (Montreal) and Rob Waters (Toronto). Both artists use utilitarian materials to produce meticulously crafted ephemeral installations that comment on power and technology.

Front Gallery:

Power Cord Series: nexus 

Please join us for a slide presentation by Monika Napier at 7pm and an informal conversation between Rob Waters and Bill Clarke at 7:30.

Working with extension cords and cable ties, Monika Napier creates abstract, organic-looking forms through a process of coiling and fastening. Though the materials are obviously mass-produced and industrial, the building process points to a hands-on, craft based approach to production. The resulting forms and configurations are colourful and seemingly quite playful. Ultimately, though, they are meditations on power and consumption and entropic or dysfunctional systems. For the first time, the artist is using power cords borrowed from friends and acquaintances from across the country, devising alternative infrastructures and creating new parameters and working methods.

mad, mad, mad, mad world, a traveling exhibition of Monika Napier’s work organized by Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan, opens at Oakville Galleries on April 5th and runs to June 3rd. A complimentary bus will leave from Mercer Union at 6:45pm to travel to the opening receptions at Oakville Galleries for mad, mad, mad, mad world and Burrow exhibitions and artist talks by Monika Napier and Adriana Kuiper. The bus will be returning to Mercer Union around 10:15pm. For more information visit www.oakvillegalleries.com.

Monika Napier holds an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, a Diploma from the Emily Carr Institute and a BFA from Concordia University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally for the past fifteen years. Napier has taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) and the University of Saskatchewan. In addition, she has served on the executives of both Eyelevel and AKA artist-run centres. She has recently relocated to her hometown of Montreal.

For more information, please visit www.mercerunion.org or contact us at info@mercerunion.org or 416.536.1519.

Mercer Union
37 Lisgar Street
(one block SW of Queen and Dovercourt)
www.mercerunion.org

Mercer Union gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.