RIPart Collective: In Praise of Mother Earth – Gaia from Both Sides

Karisa Dalamagas, Miami in Your Dreams, 2020, Acrylic on Canvas, 122 cm x 122 cm

In Praise of Mother Earth – Gaia from Both Sides
RIPart Collective (Karisa Dalamagas & Yvonne Opalinski)

November 3 – 7, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, November 3, 2023, 3pm – 9pm
Beaver Hall Gallery, Toronto

In Praise of Mother Earth – Gaia from Both Sides is presented by artists Karisa Dalamagas and Yvonne Opalinski, who together make up RIP an Art Confab. RIPart was formed as an unrestricted artist collective in 2018 to experiment with many forms of art media in the spirit of Fluxus. The In Praise of Mother Earth – Gaia from Both Sides exhibition formulates a commentary about our actions both oppositional and integrative on this planet in an epoch of climate change. On display are works that have responded for almost a decade to Gaia’s reaction to the Anthropocene.

In the work, Miami In Your Dreams, Karisa uses hyperrealism to examine the idea of nostalgia purifying memories into the too perfect representations of our traces left on the earth. A relic from the Art Deco period, Deauville Hotel undulates in harmony with the landscape and remembers a building that once belonged to another era, but was unnecessarily torn down and replaced for profit with faceless condominiums.

The sculpture, Trash Patch Eden, is the introductory piece of a pending series. In it, Yvonne references the plastic islands of the Pacific Ocean. New creation in the form of a plastic leviathan springs forth from products of our daily detritus, which was collected specifically from the operating room environment in which Yvonne works. The series, Sustainability, critically examines our lavish living experiences and the wasteful practices needed to sustain them. Yvonne digitally superimposes multiple photographs with ink drawing overlays of artists morphing and fractionating in response to Gaia and what is happening to her.

Yvonne Opalinski, Not Before Zeus, 2017, Print with Ink and Gilding on Terraskin, 102 cm x 65 cm

About the Artists

A graduate of OCAD University, Karisa Dalamagas investigates relationships between nature and man-made structures through the hyperrealism of her acrylic paintings, which magnify the illusions of perfection and memory. She also explores our experience in the world as a pop/alternative musician.

Yvonne Opalinski is a practicing physician who completed her fine art graduate work at Lancaster University. Her art draws the viewer from a macroscopic examination of the impact our material productions have on the world into the contemplation of the microscopic changes their degradation provokes.

RIPart
Ripart1@outlook.com
416 721 1658
Instagram @karisamusic

Beaver Hall Gallery
29 McCaul Street
Toronto, ON M5T 1V7

Accessibility: Beaver Hall Gallery is fully accessible.