In The Anthropology of Turquoise writer Ellen Meloy dedicates her meditation on colour, natural history and adventure to hues “as blue as devotion.”* Asking what it means to feel colours she points to their perceptual truth: although references are shared, it is  impossible to know another person’s experience of them. 

A fugitive colour—liable to shift under changing environmental conditions or time—blue has historically operated as both a material and concept. The Mayans attributed spiritual qualities to it; the skin of specific Hindu gods are painted with it; during the early Renaissance the quality of ultramarine overrode the value of artistic skill; for Kandinsky, it represented pure power and concentric motion; in The Swimmer Burt Lancaster swims his way across Connecticut through a river of aquamarine pools; and for theorist Fred Moten the blurring of black and blue offers the space in which racialized artists “mak[e] space against the edge of colour.”**  

Each of the five artists included in this exhibition—Chung-Im Kim, Paul Kneale, Lisa Myers, Nicole Ondre and Emmanuel Osahor—offer different engagements with the colour blue. Working with sculptural felt and indigo dye Chung-Im Kim explores the continuity of tradition in Korean culture.  Evoking associated spiritual and healing characteristics, her use of organic materials across geometric shapes draws connection to unseen patterns found in nature. Similarly exploring connective structures, Nicole Ondre uses the medium of ceramic to interpret permutations of mathematical knots. Distinctive from a knot in a shoelace, these forms are closed loops and cannot be undone. Theoretically infinite in their possible configurations, Ondre experiments with the elasticity of clay to render these mathematical structures fluid before glazing and firing them into permeance with vibrant tones. 

Visualizing grids entangled with personal narrative, Lisa Myers’ screenprints depict train tracks running across five sheets of paper in Train Tracks from Sault Ste. Marie to Espanola (2015/2016). Mirroring the journey her grandfather took escaping from residential school, Myers created an ink using blueberries—his main sustenance during the long journey. Through the process of creating this ink, a combination of cooking and straining, Myers draws attention to different ways of accessing memories. In a different way considering the impact of displacement, Emmanuel Osahor’s Blue Morpho (2023) recalls his memory seeing a butterfly of the same name. Brought from Costa Rica to the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory (ON) in chrysalis form, the iridescent blue-winged creature exists for a mere two-to-four weeks before expiring. To capture this memory still, the artist paints its wings blurred as if fluttering. 

Working entirely with remnants, Paul Kneale’s Hotel Pronto Ciao Papi (2024) belongs to a broader series of scanner paintings capturing light in the artist’s studio. Using an extensive process of layering, Kneale calls attention to the atmosphere around different forms of technology—here rendered aqueous and otherworldly. 

Across many languages, blue was the last to be named—meaning that the expression of its perception blurred with others such as black or green. Demonstrated across a variety of mediums, here each artist points to the expansive, elusive qualities of the colour across material and conceptual applications. 

*Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise (2003), pg 6.

**Fred Moten, Black and Blur (2017), pg 228.

Chung-Im Kim (b. 1955, Seoul, KR) completed her MFA at Seoul Women’s University (KR) before immigrating to Canada in 1990.  From 1997 to 2021, Kim taught textile design at the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto). She has been an artist-in-residence at the Harbourfront Centre (Toronto) and a freelance designer for over fifteen years creating numerous textile designs for many sectors.  Her works have been presented at venues including the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), ​​Museum de Kantfabriek (NL), Wollongong Art Gallery (AUS), the  8th Cheongju International Craft Biennale (KR), Museum of Craft and Folk Art (San Francisco), and the The Justina Barnicke Gallery (now Art Museum, Toronto) amongst numerous other national and international presentations. Her works can be found in private and corporate collections across Canada, Cyprus, Korea and the United Arab Emirates. 

Lisa Myers (b. 1969, Oakville, ON) is a curator and artist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration. Myers is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and holds a York Research Chair in Indigenous Art and Curatorial Practice. As a curator and artist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration, her research focuses on Contemporary Indigenous art considering the varied values and functions of elements such as medicine plants and language, sound, and knowledge. Select exhibitions include the the Queens Museum (New York),  Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto),  the Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff) and Urban Shaman (Winnipeg). Myers’ works can be found in collections including the Doris McCarthy Gallery (University of Toronto, Scarborough), Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development (Ottawa) as well as in private collections.  Myers is a member of Beausoleil First Nation and is based in both Toronto and Port Severn, ON.

Nicole Ondre (b. 1986, Salt Spring Island, BC) has presented solo exhibitions at Tanya Leighton (Berlin and Los Angeles), Pale Fire (Vancouver) and CSA Space (Vancouver). Select group exhibitions include IYL2 (Portland), Burnaby Art Gallery (Vancouver), OR Gallery (Vancouver) and Hayaka Arti (Istanbul). Ondre participated in the 2018 Western Front Media Arts Residency and the 2017 Contemporary Art Gallery Vancouver Fieldhouse Residency. She is represented by Tanya Leighton Gallery (Berlin and Los Angeles) and Pale Fire (Vancouver). 

Paul Kneale (b. 1986, Brantford, ON) received an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art (London). His works have been included in exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou Metz (FR), Haus der Kunst der Welt (DE), Rubell Museum (Miami), LUMA Foundation (FR), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Somerset House (London), and the Moscow International Biennale amongst many others. His works are included in many international public and private collections, and he has completed numerous permanent public sculpture commissions. Kneale has also collaborated with major fashion brands such as Nicholas Kirkwood and Versace. 

Emmanuel Osahor (b. 1993, Lagos, NRA) engages with beauty as a necessity for survival, and a precursor to thriving in the midst of today’s marginalization and inequity. Through a rigorously playful inquiry into materials and image making processes, his works depict garden spaces as complicated sanctuaries within which manifestations of beauty and care are present. He received an MFA from the University of Guelph and a BFA at the University of Alberta (Edmonton). Select exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), The Power Plant (Toronto), Art Gallery of Guelph. Oshaor’s works can be found in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Art Gallery of Guelph, and Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton) in addition to national private and corporate collections. The artist was the recipient of the Joseph Plaskett postgraduate award in painting (2021). He lives in Toronto where he is an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus.