2019 | RAJNI PERERA
TRAVELLER
TORONTO - PATEL DIVISION PROJECTS
Sept 19 - Nov 2

TRAVELLER

Sept 19 - Nov 2

Opening: Sep 19, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Patel Gallery is pleased to announce Rajni Perera's solo exhibition 'Traveller' opening September 19th at 6:00pm. This will be the inaugural exhibition at the newly announced Patel x Division Projects, a partnership between Division Montreal and Patel Gallery at 45 Ernest Ave. The exhibition will build upon Perera's Traveller series, the exhibition takes place in a future that could be now or may have already happened - speaking directly to issues of sovereignty, belonging, identity and personhood. As times of scarcity loom large, and as nation states push and pull on its citizenry, we see the diasporic person become the focus of the future.

The Traveller is protected by way of ancestral armor developed for body and spirit, and adapted to fit behaviours of care and nourishment, while facing the dangers of off-world commute, inhospitable terrain, and territorial dispute.These vestments have been produced slowly, in some cases over the course of many centuries.

The Traveller has mutated into an optimal evolutionary state, like the flowers of Fukushima, emerging beautifully while dying in some ways and being reborn in others. Their mythologies join hands and worlds through bloodlines, through warp and weft, all the way through to the place where the formerly displaced are presently powerful, safe, protected and flourishing. It is an ancient and boundless state to which they have returned, many millennia ahead of and behind us.

Perera's work actively engages in discussion with the viewing audience about the aesthetic treatment of gender and the non-European sacred and secular body in a popular culture context - acting as a restorative force through which people can move out of repressive modes of being and towards reclaiming their power. Her work has been featured in the Art Gallery of York University (Toronto ON), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto ON), and Art Fairs such as Art Toronto and Art Dubai. She lives and works in Toronto.

Text by Negarra Kudumu