Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart: WONDER

Exhibition Extended to July 27

Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart, Applying Lipstick in High Park, Video still, 2025

WONDER: Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart at Koffler Arts

Curated by David Liss
Exhibition on now until July 27, 2025
Koffler Arts, Toronto

Koffler Arts is thrilled to welcome Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart as the inaugural artist in our new gallery space, Koffler301, for a solo exhibition (on now until July 27), curated by David Liss. The exhibition, WONDER, highlights Szkabarnicki-Stuart’s practice of intersecting early cinema, vaudeville and slapstick comedy, advertising, social media, performance, and contemporary art.

Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart solo exhibition at Koffler Arts. Photo: Shay Markowitz

Szkabarnicki-Stuart is equally inspired by physical acts performed by artist Chris Burden in his early videos, such as Shoot (1971) and Trans-Fixed (1974), as well as by Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), disguised self-portraits exploring mutable identities. Similarly, Szkabarnicki-Stuart performs acts for the camera in resourcefully self-made, low-tech sets that elicit direct audience response through humour, absurdity, endearing or bizarre behaviour. While provoking a sense of amusement and wonder, these acts are not solely intended as self-portraits or site-gags. The images reflect charged moments influenced by her personal history and her surroundings.

Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart solo exhibition at Koffler Arts. Photo: Shay Markowitz

“My practice, focused on self-portraiture, draws upon the work of Cindy Sherman by appropriating contemporary commercial aesthetics and styles, typically created by large teams of professionals working for prominent brands, to focus on fleeting emotions and mundane objects,” says Szkabarnicki-Stuart.

WONDER features a selection of photographs and videos produced over the last eight years. In addition, Szkabarnicki-Stuart extends her practice by transforming Koffler Arts’ new gallery and performance space, a former classroom and office space on the third floor at Youngplace, into a site-responsive architectural environment of visual play and theatricality. Appropriating vocabularies of advertising and commercial photography, she includes homemade billboards, glossy photographs printed on vinyl applied directly onto the walls, and a series of photographs of kid goats taken during a photo shoot in the space itself.

WONDER: Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart closes on July 27 at Koffler Arts, 180 Shaw St.

Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart solo exhibition at Koffler Arts. Photo: Shay Markowitz

About the Artist

Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart is an artist based in rural Ontario, whose practice centers around photography. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for guerilla set design, she has been creating works of art since 2017 that examine the significance of everyday objects, animals, and concepts which are often overlooked or misunderstood due to their familiarity. She has been recognized both domestically and internationally, with exhibitions at venues such as the Portrait Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Photoville in New York City.

About Koffler Arts

Koffler Arts is a multi-disciplinary arts platform that celebrates Jewish artistic voices within a diverse and exploratory framework of contemporary expression. Firm believers in the inherent value of art as an essential vehicle for creating meaning and providing enjoyment, we strive to affirm our collective need for the compass and connection offered by the artist’s eye upon the world.

Koffler Arts
Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street
Toronto, ON M6J 2W5
kofflerarts.org
admin@kofflerarts.org

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Accessibility: Koffler Arts is fully accessible. For more information, visit here.