Without Being Said is an exhibition of new work by Haley Uyeda featuring photograms on canvas, paper collages, and framed photographs. Attentive to the effects of light and shadow, Uyeda gravitates to windows as a formal element in her work and as a creative agent in her art-making processes. Conceptually, windows are portals of absence and abundance, offering intermediate spaces of pause, curiosity and beauty. Across different mediums, Uyeda uses cutouts as a means to play with these spatial qualities, producing works with subtle colour palettes and contemplative compositions that beckon inquisitive viewers.
Curious about the source of her own artistic preferences, this body of work was also designed as an exploration of personal sensibility. For Uyeda, our personal sensibility describes how we engage with the material conditions of our lives, including what we notice and care about. It is not declared or performed, rather it is felt by others in our choices and ways of being. To create the work in this exhibition, Uyeda established parameters that simulate the co-mingling of such enigmatic forces as chance, family lineage, and upbringing, which shape one’s personal sensibility. For instance, she arranged cutouts from previous projects onto light-sensitive canvases before exposing them to the light of her studio window. Like a silent bequest, this process allows past work and the variability of the winter sun to create new patterns and compositions. Recognizing the often ineffable and embodied nature of sensibility, Without Being Said reflects the deeply relational nature of personal sensibility and expresses Uyeda’s reverence for materials through reuse and a love for nature and lives lived together.
Artist Bio:
Haley Uyeda holds a Master of Fine Art from York University and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from the University of Guelph. She has worked as a sessional instructor at York University and exhibited work in Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Her work can be found in both private and public collections. Haley currently lives and works in Durham Region.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
