On Sunday, March 25, The Durham Art Gallery presents Tracing Absence and Presence and Nowhere to Call Home, two new shows that find common ground between two, very distinct artists: Charmaine Lurch, a Toronto-based interdisciplinary visual artist, and Leah Denbok, a 17-year old Collingwood student artist.

Lurch's multimedia installation is a show that explores the artist's interest in the intersections between nature and culture, art and science and Black experience. Utilizing oversized wire bee sculptures and wire relief on canvas, Lurch uses the literal 'invisibility' of wild bees as they go about solitary business of foraging for food and their 'hyper-visibility' – when they threaten our personal space to explore concepts of Black subjectivity and think about "a visible space where we are allowed to just be human." These ideas have actually played themselves out in the Black pioneer presence along the Durham Road, including the Old Durham Road Pioneer Cemetery.

As an added bonus during this exhibition, York University professor, Naomi Norquay joins Charmaine Lurch in a dialogue that connects Lurch's themes with Norquay's research surrounding stories and the absent presence of Black pioneers on the Old Durham Road in Grey County. This takes place on Saturday, April 28 at 2 pm at the Gallery, with a road tour the next day to 4 key locations that mark Black pioneer presence in local townships.

For artist and student, Leah Denbok, her art touches on the invisibility of the homeless who make up the subjects of her exhibition, and whom she aims to make visible through their portraits, and using the subjects first names as the titles of the artworks. Denbok hopes to appeal to the humanity in people by using her camera as an instrument of social change and compassion. The black and white intimate portraits have been a personal quest of sorts for the artist, whose own mother was once a homeless orphan on the streets of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India. As the artist, herself says, "I invite you to look into the eyes of the homeless...they tell a story."

Tracing Absence and Presence and Nowhere to Call Home open on Sunday, March 25, 2018, with both artists present, and runs until May 13, 2018. Both shows are curated by Ilse Gassinger and supported by the Ontario Arts Council, ECL in Hanover, Margaret Norquay Endowment Fund, Scotiabank, Phil Lind and the Municipality of West Grey.

Founded in 1979, The Durham Art Gallery is a regional art gallery serving Grey and Bruce counties. For more information visit: www.durhamart.on.ca

source: media release, The Durham Art Gallery