Play Is a Roomy Subject is an international exhibition, featuring works from Welsh and
Canada-based artists, held at the University of Ottawa. The show variously explores
metaphorical dynamics of play and care within space and relationships. Relationships, be that on
an individual scale, or within communities and collectives, or even between humans and their
environment, all provide a crucial framework to questions on the meaning of play and care. In
this exhibition, bridging UK art and Canada-based works, the curatorial process and decisions
will study the interrelatedness of physical and conceptual space, care, and relational dynamics.
“Play” is offered as a pluralistic concept, unfolding under the contexts of power dynamics,
domesticity, socio-politics and metaphor. Through this exploration, the viewer is invited to
explore how “play” is a roomy subject.

The two works included in this show, With your Words and Violence is everywhere, are digital prints from mixed media drawings. These drawings are chosen from daily experiments in composition, in which colour directs mood to intensify or contradict the ‘meanings’ of the text fragments and relocate them in the self-referencing play of placement and mark making. Released from their original contexts – a letter from a charity, an email or novel – and adrift in the drawings, the words are freed to be meaningless or gather new meaning.

Featuring:
Keith Bayliss | Kimberly Eady | Sophie El-Assaad | Hamish Gane | Will Jones | Mez Kerr Jones
Bella Kerr | Heer Mandaliya | Steph Mastoris | Nilofer Rauha | Annika Walsh

Exhibited within the University of Ottawa at Gallery 115, 600 Cumberland Street.
28th November – 6th December 2022.