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Exhibition showcases imagination of the ‘two Lauras’

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A new exhibition at Bright’s Grove’s Gallery in the Grove is highlighting the prolific talents of a pair of gifted young artists who call Lambton County home.

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On Sept. 16, the gallery launched the Adjacent Views exhibition, which features the complex and compelling works of local artists Laura Kreviazuk and Laura Manzano Arias.

The exhibition runs to Oct. 23.

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Featuring a variety of mixed media pieces, the two artists’ works blend together beautifully, said the gallery’s Kirsten Kilner Holmes, and the exhibition will offer visitors to the gallery a wonderful chance to view some intriguing, thought-provoking, locally-made works of art.

“We just felt that that having the two Lauras in one exhibition would be a lovely combination,” Holmes said. “We love supporting and promoting young local artists like the two Lauras. I think we try our best to promote local artists who don’t always have a platform for their work.”

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A graduate of the University of Guelph and co-founder of the VSVSVS studio collective and artist-run centre in Toronto, Kreviazuk’s work has been showcased in Sarnia and beyond in recent years, including a show at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery in pre-COVID days.

Kreviazuk said she was excited to be teamed up with Manzano Arias for the Gallery in the Grove exhibition.

“I felt that our art had a close relationship in term of space, perspective, energy and lines – but in very different ways,” she said. “There’s a nice duality between our works.”
“I think (patrons) will experience bolder moments as well as quite ones…and I think our work is very complementary,” Kreviazuk added. “We both explore using fragmented imagery, formal elements and contrast.”

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An educator and a mixed-media collage artist with a degree in visual arts and French from Western University, Manzano Arias has participated in a variety of local art shows over the past few years and has won several awards during that time as well.

In her artist’s statement, she said she found inspiration in some old sewing patterns she stumbled across.

“I am trilingual, and I think my knowledge and experience with languages has subconsciously inspired my artwork ever since university,” she said. “I found some old sewing patterns in a thrift store and was intrigued by the complicated technical language that the sewing patterns had on their delicate tissue surface. This language seemed foreign to me, as a non-sewer, which made me want to investigate further.

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“Ever since then I have been interested in the technical language of the sewing patterns, their lines, shapes and spaces are seen as abstract to me. My goal has been to explore and create a visual relationship between human and organic form, structure and composition with the code language of sewing.”

Adjacent Views runs at Gallery in the Grove from Sept. 16 to Oct. 23. Gallery hours are 2 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

The gallery is located at 2618 Hamilton Rd. in Bright’s Grove. For more information about the exhibition, visit www.galleryinthegrove.com. For more information about the art of Laura Kreviazuk and Laura Manzano Arias, visit the Laura Kreviazuk Artist Page on Facebook or @laurakreviazuk on Instagram and Laura Arias’ Facebook page or @lauramanzanoarias on Instagram.

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