Double Bill Opening / Two Exhibits at Studio Sixty Six

ROSE TINTED GLASSES
Featuring Christos Pantieras and Introducing Rah Eleh
March 15 - May 12

ALCHEMICAL
Featuring new work by Kristy Gordon
March 15 - April 20
Exhibition speech by Councillor Ariel Troster


About Rose Tinted Glasses:
Rose Tinted Glasses unveils intergenerational narratives that invite viewers to engage with the complexities of Western political systems and their entanglement with colonial legacies, oppressive structures, and exclusionary ideologies, particularly concerning LGBTQ+ existence and memory. Infused with wit and satire, this exhibition not only serves as a critical exploration of how historical injustices persist across generations, shaping contemporary political landscapes, and perpetuating systems of marginalization but also uses humour as a lens through which to examine the absurdities of such entrenched societal norms.
"Rose-tinted glasses" is a figurative term used to describe a perspective that overly accentuates the positive aspects of a situation while minimizing or ignoring its negative aspects. It implies viewing the world or circumstances through an excessively optimistic or idealized lens, often disregarding realistic considerations.
By foregrounding intergenerational perspectives, we shed light on the resilience of LGBTQ+ communities in the face of systemic discrimination and violence, while also interrogating how Western politics continue to perpetuate exclusionary norms and binary systems.

About Christos Pantieras:
Informed by his lived experiences as a gay man who is a first-generation Greek Canadian, Pantieras' large-scale installations, sculptures, and mixed media works explore themes of autobiography, communication, intimacy, and identity. His artwork reveals the untold stories associated with wanting to make connections with others. Pantieras uses analogue processes to record a human presence and explore lost connections' resonance.
Christos Pantiears received an MFA from York University (Toronto, ON ) in 2015. Pantieras has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and his work is collected by the City of Ottawa, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Diefenbunker: Canada's Cold War Museum, and by private collectors.

About Rah Eleh:
"In my work, I focus on and critique the visual stereotypes and performative aspects that shape female gender, national and ethnic identity. My perspective is that of a Canadian-Iranian exilic and diasporic artist who is questioning while also trying to assert gender and cultural identity. In particular, I focus on the performances through which individuals express such identities and I critique the value and legitimacy of authenticity and cultural expression. Moreover, I am interested in how race and gender are performed from multiple layered perspectives: exilic, decolonial and diasporic. While performing stereotypes, I focus on fantasy, whether it is the viewer’s fantasy or my own."
- Rah Eleh

Rah Eleh is a video, digital and performance artist and a PhD candidate at the die Angewandte (University of Applied Arts) in Vienna, Austria. Rah’s work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at spaces including: Venice Biennale (ECC, Palazzo Mora), The Juno Awards (Canada), National Museum (Oslo, Norway), Vögele Kultur Zentrum, (Pfäffikon, Switzerland), Nuit Blanche (Toronto), Museum London, Vienna Art Week (Austria), Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa), Williams College Museum of Art (Williamstown, Massachusetts), Miami Art Basel, Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem, Netherlands), SomoS Art Haus (Berlin, Germany), Kunsthaus Graz Museum (Graz, Austria), and Onassis Cultural Center (Athens, Greece). She has been the recipient of numerous awards including: Long listed for 2023 Sobey Art Award, Chalmers Arts Fellowship, numerous Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Art Council Grants, and SSHRC for her MFA and the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship for her PhD. She has been awarded several residencies including the ONX Studio (NYC, NY, 2024), Intergenerational LGBTQ Artist Residency (Toronto Island, 2019), Koumaria Residency (Greece, 2016), MUU Galleria (Helsinki, 2015), Studio Das Weisse Haus (Vienna, 2014) and the Artslant Georgia Fee Residency (Paris).

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About: Alchemical
Featuring new work by Kristy Gordon


Alchemical continues Kristy Gordon's exploration of fantastical worlds. In a spirit both feminist and punk, this body of work challenges divisions between high art, decoration, and illustration. Like an alchemist she combines elements to create new narratives. These works, interweave motifs from disparate genres and periods to create temporally ambiguous settings for strange and surprising interactions among people, animals, and hybrid creatures.
In the foreground are power relations and vulnerability of the individual body and psyche. Gordon is reflecting on the pervasive role of violence in our socio-political sphere.

About Kristy Gordon:
Kristy Gordon received a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2011 and an MFA from The New York Academy of Art in 2013. She is an adjunct Professor at the New York Academy of Art. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and China, notably at the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, Spain, the National Academy Museum, NYC and Flowers Gallery, NYC.


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