The objective of the Quebec Contemporary Art Fair is to promote the acquisition of works by emerging or established artists. This innovative event aims to democratize the purchase of works of art and to encourage dialogues between collectors and artists.
Curator: Dominique Fontaine
Rajni Perera: Artist Statement
Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives and works in Toronto. Perera’s work explores issues of hybridity, sacrilege and irreverence, indexical sciences, ethnography, gender, sexuality, popular culture, deities, monsters, and dream worlds. All of these themes marry in a newly objectified realm of mythical symbioses, made to act as Perera’s personal record of impossible discoveries. Her work actively engages in discussion with the viewing audience about the aesthetic treatment of gender and the non-European sacred and secular body in a popular culture context. Thus, her work creates a subversive aesthetic that counteracts oppressive discourse and acts as a restorative force through which people can move out of repressive modes of being and towards reclaiming their power.
Biography
Her art has been exhibited at Glasgow Tramway (Glasgow, Scotland, 2020), the Phi Foundation (Montreal, Canada, 2020), Chromatic Festival (Montréal, Canada, 2019), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto, Canada, 2018), The Museum of Moder Art (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Art Metropole (Toronto, Canada, 2017), Gallery 44 (Toronto, Canada, 2017), the art Gallery of York University (Toronto, Canada, 2017), the Colombo Art Biennale (Edinburgh, UK, 2017), OTA Fine Arts (Tokyo, Japan 2017), Superchief Gallery (Brooklyn, USA, 2017), the Colombo Art Biennale (Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2016), The Public House of Art (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2016), Art Dubai (Dubai, UAE, 2016) and the Art League Houston (Houston, USA, 2014), and other sites. The Art Gallery of Ontario acquired and exhibited one of her artworks in 2019.