Jaclyn Conley: Girls
March 19 to June 27, 2004
Jaclyn Conley, Graces (2003)
Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
Acquisition Assistance Program, 2004
Guelph
artist Jaclyn Conley draws on both art history and pop culture to create
paintings that take a clear-eyed, post-feminist approach to traditional
equations of the female figure and beauty.
In the exhibition Girls, Conley revisited the question of
beauty through the dual prisms of historic and contemporary images.
Her figures were lifted from low-fashion, mail order magazines and
elevated to high art. Conley
investigates how the female image has, and still is, used to signify beauty.
Her modern day sirens bask in their idyllic surroundings, keenly aware of
the gaze they elicit.
The Art Centre was pleased to announce, at the time of this exhibition, the acquisition of the painting Graces (2003) for the collection. Jaclyn Conley graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto), the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (Halifax), and has a Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Guelph. Her work has garnered considerable public attention. Conley has received awards including the Board of Graduate Studies Research Scholarship, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Award (all 2003). She has also received recognition for her work from The Canada Millenium Scholarship Foundation (2001) and The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (2003). Recent exhibition venues include the Anna Leonowens Art Gallery (Halifax), Venue 101 (Halifax) and the Durham Art Gallery. In 2004, Conley’s work was featured in the exhibition Switch at the University of Buffalo (New York).