Body Languages
Iván Acebo-Choy, Jillian Fleck, and Patrick Moskwa
Opening Reception October 18 6PM
Artist Talk October 18 7PM
Body Languages is a group exhibition from Iván Acebo-Choy, Jillian Fleck, and Patrick Moskwa which seeks to untangle the intricacies of queer loneliness and the deviant nature of masculine identity in cisheteronormative space. Through explorations of subtextually queer spaces such as the men’s locker room, the arenas of full-contact sport, and myths of the monstrous akin to the lonely minotaur, this exhibition inquires after the ways secretive gender and sexuality take shape through isolation.
Iván Acebo-Choy is a Mexican artist and art historian who creates artists’ books through embroidery on fabric and paper. With his one-of-a-kind embroidered book-objects, he is keen on challenging our perceptions of the act of writing, reading, and even expanding the conceptual and physical dimensions of the finished object. His work explores issues pertaining queer identities, memory and intimacy. His artists’ books are in private and public collections such as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (United States), The New York Public Library (United States), and UC Santa Cruz (United States), among others. He recently received a national grant to investigate and problematize the impact of historical Chinese immigration in contemporary Mexican-Chinese culture and its role in identity formation through food.
Jillian Fleck is a non-binary comic creator and illustrator. Their graphic novels Cheryl and Lake Jehovah were published by Conundrum Press. They studied at the Alberta University for the Arts and at the University of Dundee Comics Studies program. Jillian has exhibited their work nationally and internationally, including events such as the Toronto Comics Art Festival, the Graphic Medicine Conference, and the Art Bubble Festival in Denmark.
Patrick Moskwa received an MFA in Craft Media from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2022, and a B.Arch from Carleton in 2002. His work explores the dynamic relationships we have with objects and humans, the spaces we occupy, and the ways his queer body creates friction between these agents. He is concerned with dispelling the common myths that architecture can only be a constructed building rather than the spaces experienced between bodies – human and otherwise. Patrick is observant of the fragility of things, and uses this tension to explore the space and memories in which we exist. Patrick has been working in the architecture discipline for 22 years before engaging in craft to explore his architecture practice.