September 21 – November 9, 2024
Opening reception:
Saturday September 21, 3-6pm.
COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada
↓ InformationCOOPER COLE is pleased to present The Spider Plays, the second solo exhibition by
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill at the gallery.
This exhibition delves into the activities of an imagined group of spiders as they
experience fear, anxiety, and the threat of violence, as well as the inextinguishable forces
of collectivity and creativity. The “plays” in this exhibit are multi-page works on paper,
layered in ink and collage. Text is structured on the pages as concrete poetry, with stage
directions and dialogue arranged into the shape of spiders, the paper becoming the wall
the spiders are sitting on.
Several sculptural elements in the space invite visitors to imagine the spiders’ world at a
human scale. Stairs leading to a constructed walkway running the length of the exhibition
space encourages visitors to climb up to see works hung higher in the gallery, enacting a
kind of choreography where the bodies of the visitors against the wall might mimic the
bodies of the spiders in the works on paper. The sculptures — a pair of silk pajamas with
four arms, sneakers covered in fine hair-like threads — are directly inspired by the spider
plays, drawing viewers into a human-scale interpretation of the plays.
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (b. 1979, Comox, British Columbia, Canada) is an artist and
writer working primarily in sculpture and drawing. Often, her projects emerge from an
interest in capitalism as an imposed, impermanent, and vulnerable system, as well as in
alternative economic modes. Her works have used found and readily-sourced materials to
address concepts such as private property, exchange, and black-market economies. Hill is
a member of BUSH gallery, an Indigenous artist collective seeking to decentre Eurocentric
models of making and thinking about art, prioritizing instead land-based teachings and
Indigenous epistemologies. Hill is Cree and English, with maternal roots in the Michel
Band and Papaschase. She lives on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh,
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ Nations.
Hill received her MFA from the California College of the Arts, and a BFA and BA from
Simon Fraser University. Recent exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, New
York; Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson; the 59th Venice
Biennale; Le Magasin CNAC, Grenoble; Vancouver Art Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery,
Vancouver; the College Art Galleries at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; Art
Gallery of Alberta; Mercer Union, Cooper Cole, Gallery TPW, Toronto; The National
Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
To learn more about this exhibition, please provide your contact information.
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill
Spider Play
Spider Play, 2024
Paper, printer ink, blackberry ink, crisco, oil pigments, paper cutouts
G.LH0061
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill
Love
Love, 2024
Paper, printer ink, grass ink, oregon grape ink, crisco, oil pigment, paper cutouts, oregon grape seeds
G.LH0057
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill
The Eggs
The Eggs, 2024
Paper, printer ink, dandelion ink, crisco oil pigments, paper cutouts, egg sac
G.LH0062
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill
Parachute / I dream I am jumping, running, swimming, climbing
Parachute / I dream I am jumping, running, swimming, climbing, 2024
Silk pajamas, blackberry ink, pollen, ash, saran wrap, coat hangers, duct tape
G.LH0059
