IMPORTANT PAPERS Gabrielle Lajoie-Bergeron (Charlevoix, Canada)

Gabrielle Lajoie-Bergeron is a French-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, curator, teacher and cultural worker living and working between Charlevoix, Canada and Baltimore, USA.

In 2019, Lajoie-Bergeron found an 8.5″ x 11″ envelope with the stamp: “IMPORTANT PAPERS”. She opened it months later and found photographs, drawings, and poetry of a Mexican woman born in 1923 who married an American citizen. The papers were part of the immigration process accompanied with text written by her daughter from 1975. She explains the painful experience of having been raised between two cultures.

The artist writes, “Through this project, I want to explore the idea of having your life in an 8.5″ x 11″ paper envelope for years. The culminating exhibition will not be a presentation of her life or mine, but an eclectic constellation of moments in life influenced by the administration of another country.”

BITTER SWEET Erykah Townsend (Cleveland, OH)

BITTER SWEET is a word play for the playful yet resentful actions from cartoon characters (such as Tom and Jerry), in addition to “bittersweet” for the nostalgic feeling from memories of such shows; the feeling of sadness of time and memories. The work depicts fun and violent behavior within the era of retro children’s cartoons in comparison to aggressive and competitive activities at children’s birthday parties. Memories from playing games at children’s birthday parties reflects the determination and combative behavior that we see in our adulthood. Such as politics, workplaces, dating, war, and more. Bitter Sweet visually communicates the mind set and mood of living in the hectic modern age. The lively colors and a tasteful sensibility inspired by the decorations of children’s birthday parties distracts from the aggressiveness and gloomy habits of the work. Bitter Sweet captures how media and pop culture subliminal portray or censor the truth of reality- just as retro cartoons.