Care: Tea Gerbeza, George Glenn, Karishma Joshi, Ashley Johnson and Karlie King

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Karishma Joshi, “Lines of Sorrow,” year unknown

human hair and plastic sleeves, variable dimensions (courtesy of the artist)

Opening Reception: Friday, November 1, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

The artists in Care reveal the unknown, the ignored and the unseen: internal anatomy, viruses, dreams, memories and pain. Artworks by Tea Gerbeza, George Glenn, Karishma Joshi, Ashley Johnson and Karlie King dispel expected narratives of contact with the medical system. Agents of disease, their transformed bodies, and medical tests become the raw materials for their artworks.

Joshi's Lines of Sorrow is a series of transparent pouches stuffed with that day's fallen hair. Their accumulation is a devastating insight into the unrelenting nature of her illness and the loss of feminine attributes highly valued in her South Asian cultural background. A 100-micron-wide human hair fittingly symbolizes how society trivializes women's health issues.

Gerbeza's collage and paper-quilled works, Bedscapes, depict the bed as an ambivalent landscape, representing rest, recovery, pleasure, sickness, pain, and isolation. In some collages, she assembles the downy forms of pillows and mattresses from the rigid lengths of used diabetes test strips, demonstrating how bed and health are entangled with a sense of self, especially for Gerbeza as she works to build kinship with her body, self and pain.

Glenn acknowledges the life-altering impact of the Poliovirus, how it remains a part of his body, and his artistic inspiration. Viral Schematic renders the Poliovirus in shimmering colour and complex geometric folds; his other drawings trace a route through childhood homes and hospital Polio wards, overlaid with the architecture of his nightmares.

Johnson and King aim to unveil the mysterious interior of our bodies through their multi-sensory installation, The Moving Heart, which combines King's tactile ceramic hearts with Johnson's experiential anatomy approach. The heart is a powerful symbol of metaphorical care, encapsulating our deepest longings while being a vital organ.

The word "care" is ambiguous, constantly mutating, encompassing worry, fondness, and maintenance. We can use these shifting meanings to reshape societal perceptions of care.