June Clark-Greenberg
Mnemosyne
Installation and Photo Etchings

Toronto Artist

MEDIA RELEASE

Opening Thursday April 19 at 8:00pm, Mercer Union presents Mnemosyne, an exhibition of recent work by Toronto artist June Clark-Greenberg. The photo-etchings by Clark-Greenberg combine images of her own chlldhood and domestic life with archival photographs, documentlng the joy and pain of the Black experience in North America.

Her solo exhibition at Mercer Union is comprised of three new works, including 'For When We Go Downtown' and '2191 8th Avenue', which combine reproductions of her photo-etchlngs and accompanying text with various sculptural elements. The third piece, an installation entitled 'Formative Triptych,' is a series of three duratrans produced from her photo-etchings, enlarged and illuminated in three large lightboxes. The placement of her images within the realm of advertising media represents an attempt to transform the intimate qualities of these photo etchings, thus altering the viewer's perception of them.

In lieu of a narrative, Clark-Greenberg presents the viewer with fragments of a personal history. The process of photo-etching, adopted to suggest rather than report this history, serves to blur the sharp distinctions between the real and the imagined. With these images, the artist does not attempt to preach, teach or admonish. Instead, she conveys the hopes and disappointments of an individual and a race, and the resiliency of the human spirit.

Currently completing her M.F.A. at York University, this exhibition represents the artist's first major solo show in a professional gallery, although she has been exhibiting her photographs ln group shows since 1973. June Clark-Greenberg's exhibition Mnemosyne, in Mercer Union's West Gallery, continues through to May 19.