FIFTY / FIFTY: Melissa Fisher & Teresa Aversa at SlaM

The space at Sur la Montagne (SlaM) Gallery on Torstrasse is split down the middle, with the work of Toronto-based artists Melissa Fisher and Teresa Aversa exhibited on either side. Aversa’s ‘Untitled (Flower Portraits) – an ongoing series of photos of fake flower bouquets, taken in cemeteries around Toronto and developed at Walmart – cover the walls adjacent to the gallery entrance. The extreme close ups and overexposure from the 35mm disposable camera’s flash lend these images a distinctly intimate feel; giving the sensation of an accidental proximity to the subject, as if taken in the pitch dark. Yet the impetus for these colourful portraits stems from Aversa’s personal desire to understand the very subjective processes of mourning, and their symbolic manifestations.

The two artists exhibited at SlaM, though working with different media, gracefully complement one another. Melissa Fisher’s installations, from her series called ‘Reality Checks,’ are the results of a process of documentation. She reinvents sculptures and installations from her studio– mostly made up of found objects that retain personal significance – by altering, rotating and repeating their image in order to explore the original material’s ‘alternate realities’ in different contexts. The results are a series of poignant and multi-faceted installations that reflect the artist’s personal meditation on the transiency of relationships: “not exclusively the ones we construct with other people, but also with ourselves, objects and the world around us.”

The current exhibition by Fisher and Aversa is the first of the summer residency hosted by SlaM Gallery. The ‘Auberge Sur la Montagne’ residency includes 9 international artists and is curated by recent SlaM-Collective recruit, Drew Simpson.

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Additional Information

SUR LA MONTAGNE
“FIFTY/FIFTY” – MELISSA FISHER and TERESA AVERSA
Exhibition: May 4 – May 12, 2012
Finnisage: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Torstrasse 170, Berlin (Click here for map)

For more info about the artists:

Melissa Fisher
melissa-fisher.com

Teresa Aversa
teresaaversa.com
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Blog entry by Alison Hugill, photos by Anna Russ; Wednesday, May 9, 2012.