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Cheryl Pagurek
- born in 1967 in Ottawa, Ontario
- grandparents emigrated from Poland in the 1920s
- B.F.A. Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1990);
M.F.A. University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia (1992)
click on thumbnails at left to view larger images
Cheryl Pagurek has long devoted her mixed-media
installation work to the exploration of the home as a space of personal identity, using
photography and installation to create contrast between private and public identities,
between scenes of "reality" and the constructed space of the rooms she
fabricates, between concrete objects and illusionary projections. Pagurek's 1994
installation piece, 5 Fraserwood Ave., Apt. #2 explored the life and immigration of
her Polish-Jewish grandparents, juxtaposing a cozy living-room interior with photographs
of factory life and a Jewish cemetery. She explains, "I wish to explore the ways in
which my grandparents immigrant experience and personal losses determined the
domestic environment with which they surrounded themselves in later life. The particular
ornate and flowery character of their home reflects their conception of
"success" and "comfort." Their living room of gilt fixings, busy
combinations of patterns and colours and highly embellished furniture represents all that
is opposite to the bleakness of their past hardships as immigrants finding their way in a
new country, of losing their families in the Second World War" (quoted in Allen,
1994). In Coverage (1995) the artist projected news events onto an installation of
a domestic space (a replica of her own living room), continuing the examination of tension
between public and private, between the safe and decorative interior and the bleak, harsh
exterior world. In Send in the Clowns (1994), she used memories of her childhood
bedroom to construct an interior space that included toys, wallpaper with a circus motif,
and brightly-coloured furniture. Into this childish interior she projected images of
public spaces such as alleys and industrial sights, jarring the viewer with the contrast.
The 1996 exhibit entitled Interview featured both the Coverage series
and the series Send in the Clowns. Donna Jones commented on the effect of
Pagureks work in 1995, writing: "Cheryl is not just exposing the thinness of
the wall between public and the private, she is also positioning the viewer of her images
as one who is looking into the window created by the physical edges of the photograph. The
viewer is an intruder akin," she says, "to a real estate open house who intrudes
on the private living space of another living person." Pagurek has taught sculpture
at Camoson College in Victoria as a replacement instructor; staged photography at the
Victoria College of Art; history and appreciation through the Division of Continuing
Studies at the University of Victoria; and as a grad student, taught one drawing course in
the Visual Art department at the University of Victoria. She participated in ReBOUNCE<Victoria,
a Dutch-Canadian cultural exchange project in Victoria, British Columbia and Rotterdam,
Holland, in 1996. She has also devoted time to teaching childrens classes in Nepean
and Ottawa, Ontario, and Victoria, British Columbia, and presented as a
Gallery-in-the-Schools volunteer for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 |
A Day in the Life
Ottawa School of Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario |
1998 |
daily news
Gallery 101, Ottawa, Ontario |
1996 |
InterView
Open Space, Victoria, British Columbia |
1995 |
Projected
TRUCK: An Artist Run Centre, Calgary, AlbertaSend
in the Clowns: Acts 1-4
Floating Gallery Centre for Photography, Winnipeg, Manitoba
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1994 |
5 Fraserwood Ave., Apt. #2
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario; Hamilton Artists Inc., Hamilton,
Ontario |
1993 |
Maison d'être
The Atrium Gallery, Nepean Civic Square, Nepean, Ontario |
1992 |
Open-House: A Series of
Installations
XChanges Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia |
1991 |
Domestic Room
McPherson Library Gallery, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia |
1990 |
Recent Work
McPherson Library Gallery, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia |
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1997 |
PROOF 4
Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto, OntarioFour Cubed
Hotel New York, Rotterdam, Netherlands
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1996 |
Genesis III
Victoria Eaton Centre Fourth Floor Galleries, Victoria, British Columbia |
1995 |
Reconfiguring Cultural
Identity
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia |
1994 |
In-difference
XChanges Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia |
1993 |
Artropolis 93: Public Art
and Art about Public Issues
The Woodward's Building, Vancouver, British ColumbiaOut of Context
XChanges Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia
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1992 |
Opening of the New Faculty
of Fine Arts Building
University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia |
1990 |
Four Artists' Recent Work
Kingston Public Library, Kingston, Ontario"A
Group of Women Artists" Collaborative Piece
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
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1989 |
La Salle Mews, Kingston,
Ontario |
COLLECTIONS
Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario
Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Jan. 5 Fraserwood Ave., Apt. #2.
Kingston, Ontario: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, 1994. Artropolis 93: Public Art and Art about Public Issues. Vancouver,
British Columbia: A.T. Eight Artropolis Society, 1993.
Clintberg, Shane, et al. Proof 4. Toronto,
Ontario: Gallery 44, 1997.
Gordaneer, Alisa. "Sitting uneasily: There's a war
in your living-room." Monday Magazine 22, no. 2 (4 January 1996): n.p.
Jones, Donna. "Cheryl Pagurek. Send in the Clowns:
Acts 1-4, March 2-30, 1995." Photophile (January 1995): n.p.
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