Rachelle Wunderink: When Men Were Men and Women Were Rugs

Rachelle Wunderink, Blanket Babes No.4

When Men Were Men and Women Were Rugs
Rachelle Wunderink

March 13 – May 26, 2026
Opening Reception: March 14, 2026, 2 – 4pm
Grimsby Public Art Gallery

Grimsby Public Art Gallery (GPAG) is pleased to present the exhibition, When Men Were Men and Women Were Rugs. Join us for the opening reception on Saturday, March 14, from 2pm to 4pm. Artist Rachelle Wunderink and Curator Sylvia Beben will be in attendance. Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome.

Wunderink’s solo show, When Men Were Men and Women Were Rugs, examines her own experiences of matrescence—the loss of self and profound transition that often accompany mothering. The term, coined by Dana Raphael in the 1970s, describes a long-term developmental process marked by the intense neurobiological, psychological, and social shifts that new mothers often feel.

During her early years of motherhood, Wunderink created hundreds of collages in response to this deeply personal yet universal experience of matrescence. These collaged works depict her experience of disappearance: women become hybrid furniture-object-doormats, poised within the collages, coiffed, at attention, yet woven into their surroundings. In conversation with these collage works are video collages embedded within household furniture. Wunderink looped and spliced 50s and 60s advertisements into aspirational-turned-insane depictions of how mundane mothering can be.

Shaped by her early years of mothering and in response to her experiences of matrescence, Wunderink’s When Men were Men, and Women were Rugs critiques how women like her are still expected to gracefully weave themselves into the domestic everyday of homemaking and child-raising, all while experiencing physical, psychological, and social changes that reshape their brains.

Special thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for their support.

About the Artist

Rachelle Wunderink is an interdisciplinary settler artist currently based on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee of “Onguiaahra” (Niagara Falls), Canada. She finished her Master’s of Fine Arts at York University, where she was awarded The Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC) for her thesis exhibition. Over the past 10 years she has co-founded two separate artist collectives working mostly abroad in Taipei, Taiwan and Grand Rapids, Michigan. She recently had two solo exhibitions at IA&A Hillyer in Washington D.C (2025), and Eastern Edge Artist-Run Centre in St.Johns (2025), and was featured in the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art’s Jump Off exhibition, and Young Art’s Taipei with Archetype Gallery. Rachelle is a proud mother of two children, and can be found in her studio listening to podcasts such as Normal Gossip, or This American Life.

Wunderink employs mixed-media painting, collage, video, and installation to interrogate these themes, using replication, layering, and abstraction to evoke memory, identity, and social commentary. Her work often incorporates found materials associated with domesticity and traditional women’s crafts, elevating these objects through abstraction and encouraging viewers to engage with their layered meanings. Through this process, she invites dialogue about embodiment, care, and the intersection of personal and collective histories within women’s lived experiences.

About Grimsby Public Art Gallery

The Grimsby Public Art Gallery was founded in 1975 as a committee of the Grimsby Public Library Board, creating an active and accessible community art gallery in the lower level of the Grimsby Public Library. In 1999 the Gallery became a separate sub-department of the Town of Grimsby, although we still shared a building with the Library. In 2004 both Gallery and Library moved into a new purpose–built facility that has significantly enhanced our ability to fulfill all aspects of our mandate.

Forging and maintaining connections with our community is of primary importance and we do this through our careful selection and presentation of exhibitions and programs. We preserve art by our responsible care of the permanent collection. We encourage visual art by maintaining a gallery that is open and welcoming to all visitors and by offering a range of thought-provoking art and related programs.

Grimsby Public Art Gallery
18 Carnegie Lane
Grimsby, ON L3M 1Y1
905-945-3246
www.grimsby.ca/Art-Gallery

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Facebook @thegpag

Gallery Hours:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 10am – 5pm
Thursday: 10am – 9pm
Saturday: 12pm – 5pm

For more information please contact:
Sylvia Beben
Art Gallery Manager/Curator
Grimsby Public Art Gallery
905-345-3246 x 2079
sbeben@grimsby.ca

Accessibility:
Grimsby Public Art Gallery is wheelchair accessible.