Badanna Zack & Eija Lopenen-Stephenson: Once Very Familiar,
United Contemporary is pleased to present Once Very Familiar, a duo exhibition featuring works by Badanna Zack and Eija Lopenen-Stephenson. Between these two artists, there is a preoccupation with undressing. In Zack’s work, this happens in the unveiling of an interior body, and in Loponen-Stephenson, it is found in the suggestion of a body—a body that folds into its surroundings, its dress, or rather, a body that evades such restrictions and instead hovers just outside. There is too, in each artists’ work, a suggestion of an animal cloaked in what is otherwise understood as the work of the civilized.
Curated by Chelsea Rozansky
Badanna Zack is a sculpture artist from Montreal, QC, who now lives and works in Toronto. Zack’s work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally from the mid-1960s to the mid 2000s. Her work has been presented at the Oakwood Contempoary Gallery, Plug In ICA, the Belgium Sculpture Biennial among many others, and is in the collections of Douglas College, NJ, Rutgers University, NJ, Concordia University, the Art Galley of Hamilton, the Oakville Centennial Gallery, Lynnwood Arts Centre and numerous private collections. Zack studied architecture at McGill University, and practiced as an architect for ten years before obtaining her B.A of Fine Arts from Concordia University in 1964 and her M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Zack emerged as a sculpture artist during the Minimalist movement, of which she rebelled against to surface as a unique sculptor in her own right. Her work ranges from femininist erotic art at the beginign of her career, to life size sculptures of barn animals, and an extended study of automobiles (which include large-scale instillations of crushed and stacked cars).
Eija Loponen-Stephenson is an emerging artist currently based in Toronto, ON. Loponen-Stephenson’s work in sculpture and installation surrounds an interest in denaturing the perceived boundaries between the body and object to better understand the interdependent relationality amongst them. Loponen-Stephenson is an Ada Slaight scholar and a prospective 2020 graduate of OCAD U’s Sculpture and Installation BFA program. During her schooling, Eija has been an artist in residence for the Round Table Summer Residency (2019, Toronto, ON) as well as Cottage University Summer Residency (2016, Verona, ON, hosted by the Department of Biological Flow). She has shown locally and nationally in exhibitions in Ontario and British Columbia. Loponen-Stephenson currently works as a gallery assistant at Ignite Gallery in Kensington Market.
