Fatine-Violette Sabiri: Wink*

September 10 - October 8, 2022

In times of need, laughter can be the best medicine—a welcome disruption from the challenges that punctuate our daily lives. From sarcasm and satire to cerebral witticisms, improv, dirty puns, and practical jokes, humour is a shapeshifting tonic.

Of its many forms, physical humour might be the most universal. Some might consider it grotesque or embarrassing, but this interpretation doesn’t account for the genre's prelinguistic resonance and involuntary reactions. Physical humour reminds us of the many things in this world beyond our control: the weather, the body, the way the ketchup slides out of a glass container. The fact of our material world’s unpredictability governs the tides of relation and empathy. On occasion, we find ourselves laughing when we ought to cry. Inappropriate laughter is a spontaneous, contagious, and healing force capable of soothing conflict, providing distraction and comfort in equal measure.

In her solo exhibition, Wink*, Fatine-Violette Sabiri presents a series of new works that emphasize the role of humour, play, and care in the artist’s visual landscape. A selection drawn from Sabiri’s ongoing autobiographical photography series, Monthly, investigates an instinctual improvisation demonstrated by parties on either side of the lens. Personal narratives emerge from her encounters with people and objects in her immediate surroundings to enliven an expanded ground of play. Both human and non-human subjects play a distinct role in shaping the image by generously revealing their histories and personalities to Sabiri as time unfolds. Documents of embodied gestures, tragicomic still-lives, and the occasional family portrait inhabit the gallery, forming a generous mosaic of intimacy determined through levity and theatricality.

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Fatine-Violette Sabiri (b. 1994, Casablanca) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Montreal working across photography and traditional tactile mediums. Her practice employs intuition toward examining personal narratives from encounters with people and objects. The resulting body of work emerges through an equilibrium of autobiography, storytelling, and improvisation. Her photographs take multiple forms, existing as a hybrid of personal documentary images, commissioned portraits, and editorial fashion work. Throughout the varied disciplines and approaches in her work, she cultivates the importance of adaptation and humour.

Sabiri holds a BFA in Studio Arts with a Minor in Film Studies from Concordia University. Her work has been presented in several solo and group exhibitions, including Joe Project (Montreal, 2022), The Plumb (Toronto, 2021), Le 18 (Marrakesh, 2021), Jedna Dva Tři Gallery (Prague, 2020) and Soon. tw (Montreal, 2017). Wink* is Sabiri’s first solo exhibition in Toronto.

Press:
Public Parking Publication, Emily Zuberec (special mention)