"Wherever my mind led me, I would go," Yoakum once said. "I've been all over this world four times."
Hope Dies Last
Amanda Boulos
Ali Eyal
Kristan Horton
Joseph E. Yoakum
Exhibition: 18 July - 31 August, 2024
190 St Helen's Avenue, Toronto
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 5pm
Amanda Boulos
Ali Eyal
Kristan Horton
Joseph E. Yoakum
Exhibition: 18 July - 31 August, 2024
190 St Helen's Avenue, Toronto
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 5pm
CRG is thrilled to present Hope Dies Last, a group show that brings together four distinctly different artists. The exhibition is mounted in a spirit of optimism, inquiry, imagination and perseverance. "Wherever my mind led me, I would go," Joseph Yoakum said. "I've been all over this world four times." Kristan Horton is widely known for being deeply, obsessively rooted in his studio practice, his mind a crucible. "I often call my aesthetic something I arrive at," he said. "And I celebrate my arrivals in these foreign lands-the more foreign, the better." When the critic and writer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie asked Ali Eyal how he became an artist, he said "The Iraqi sun taught me how to draw." Eyal uses art "to find new ways of seeing and hearing stories, and I'm always trying to find a new story at the back of my head. All the works are based on a fictional farm that I've created and keep returning to, but with different stories and different scenarios. I see the various media as witnessing tools, like inside a courtroom, but all based on my mind and memories." Amanda Boulos is a Palestinian artist based in Toronto. She feels that "The ability to see one culture against another definitely magnifies life. It influences my practice and supplies me with endless content that I can admire, question and learn from."
Hope dies last was a phrase spoken most prominently by Jessie Lopez De La Cruz (1919 - 2013), a Chicano-American migrant field worker from the age of 5 who later organized the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez and was its first female recruiter. A tireless advocate for all those like her, toiling under a broiling sun, she was an activist till her death at 93 and was immortalized by Studs Terkel in his book, titled after de la Cruz's indelible words.
Amanda Boulos (she/her) is a visual artist and educator based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Boulos engages with fragmented national narratives from Palestine, Lebanon, and Canada to explore how oral histories can morph into the future of the Palestinian diaspora or shattat. She received her MFA from the University of Guelph and her BFA from York University. Boulos has exhibited in Toronto, New York, Montréal, and Halifax. In the fall of 2024, she will join the OCAD University faculty as an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing. She is also a member of the Toronto project space the plumb and a programmer for the Toronto Palestine Film Festival.
Ali Eyal (b. 1994, Small Farm) is an artist working with painting, drawing, performance, installation, and video, through which he explores the relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics, and identity. Eyal's imagery is characterized by its intense subjectivity that brings forth fragmented narratives and surreal visual scenes and compositions. Eyal's solo exhibitions include …retrieving an Obscured Present/Presence, BellyMan, Los Angeles (2023); In the Head's Sunrise, Brief Histories, New York (2022); and In the Head's Dusk, SAW Gallery, Ottawa (2022). Eyal was featured in Manif D'art la biennale de Quebec: The Strength of Sleep (2024). Recent group exhibitions include Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023); Is It Morning for You Yet?, the 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2023); Surviving the Long Wars: Reckon and Reimagine, Chicago Cultural Center (2023); documenta fifteen, Kassel (2022); Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, MoMA PS1, New York (2020); and How to Reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing, Beirut Art Center, Beirut (2019). Eyal's video work has been included in the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil: Memory Is an Edition Station, São Paulo (2023); Rencontres Internationales, Paris (2019); VITRINE x Kino Screenings, London (2019); Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); and Cairo Video Festival, Medrar (2013). Eyal holds an undergraduate degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad (2015), and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Kristan Horton (b. 1971, lives Montreal) is a Canadian contemporary artist known for his innovative and multidisciplinary approach to art. Horton's work spans across photography, sculpture, video, and installation, often blurring the boundaries between these mediums. He is celebrated for his conceptual explorations that combine meticulous craftsmanship with a playful, experimental spirit. His work frequently engages with themes of perception, memory, and the interplay between reality and representation. He is acclaimed for his ability to transform everyday objects and materials into thought-provoking artworks that challenge conventional interpretations and invite viewers to reconsider their surroundings. Horton has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, with his works featured in prominent galleries and museums. He has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to contemporary art, solidifying his reputation as a leading figure in the Canadian art scene and beyond. Horton studied at Guelph University and the Ontario College of Art and Design. His work has been shown at White Columns, NY; Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich; Glassbox, Paris; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Inter Communications Center, Tokyo; York University Art Gallery; The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver and Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo. His work is held in the collections of AIMIA Collection, Toronto; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; BNC - Banque National du Canada Collection, Montreal; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and RBC Royal Bank of Canada Collection, Toronto among others.
In 1962 at the age of 71, Joseph E. Yoakum (1891-1972) reported having a dream that inspired him to draw. Thereafter the retired veteran began a daily practice and over the next 10 years produced some 2,000 works.
Yoakum was born into poverty, had very little schooling, and at an early age left home to join a circus. He wound up working with several circuses, traveling across the United States as well as abroad and becoming intimately familiar with the world's various landscapes. These experiences would provide the foundational memories that fueled his deeply spiritual vision decades later. When he began to put that vision to paper in his apartment on Chicago's South Side in the early 1960s, Yoakum quickly developed a unique visual language, independent and distinct from other artists in the city, such as those involved in the flourishing Black Arts Movement or the up-and-coming Chicago Imagist group. His drawings-predominantly landscapes in ballpoint pen, colored pencil, pastel, and watercolor and inscribed with locations from all seven continents-reflect the scope of his national and international travels as well as his idiosyncratic and poetic vision of the natural world. Solo exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His work is held many public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; The Menil Collection, Houston; and the MoMA, New York. Joseph Elmer Yoakum lived and worked in Chicago until his death in 1972.
Hope dies last was a phrase spoken most prominently by Jessie Lopez De La Cruz (1919 - 2013), a Chicano-American migrant field worker from the age of 5 who later organized the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez and was its first female recruiter. A tireless advocate for all those like her, toiling under a broiling sun, she was an activist till her death at 93 and was immortalized by Studs Terkel in his book, titled after de la Cruz's indelible words.
Amanda Boulos (she/her) is a visual artist and educator based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Boulos engages with fragmented national narratives from Palestine, Lebanon, and Canada to explore how oral histories can morph into the future of the Palestinian diaspora or shattat. She received her MFA from the University of Guelph and her BFA from York University. Boulos has exhibited in Toronto, New York, Montréal, and Halifax. In the fall of 2024, she will join the OCAD University faculty as an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing. She is also a member of the Toronto project space the plumb and a programmer for the Toronto Palestine Film Festival.
Ali Eyal (b. 1994, Small Farm) is an artist working with painting, drawing, performance, installation, and video, through which he explores the relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics, and identity. Eyal's imagery is characterized by its intense subjectivity that brings forth fragmented narratives and surreal visual scenes and compositions. Eyal's solo exhibitions include …retrieving an Obscured Present/Presence, BellyMan, Los Angeles (2023); In the Head's Sunrise, Brief Histories, New York (2022); and In the Head's Dusk, SAW Gallery, Ottawa (2022). Eyal was featured in Manif D'art la biennale de Quebec: The Strength of Sleep (2024). Recent group exhibitions include Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023); Is It Morning for You Yet?, the 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2023); Surviving the Long Wars: Reckon and Reimagine, Chicago Cultural Center (2023); documenta fifteen, Kassel (2022); Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, MoMA PS1, New York (2020); and How to Reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing, Beirut Art Center, Beirut (2019). Eyal's video work has been included in the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil: Memory Is an Edition Station, São Paulo (2023); Rencontres Internationales, Paris (2019); VITRINE x Kino Screenings, London (2019); Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); and Cairo Video Festival, Medrar (2013). Eyal holds an undergraduate degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad (2015), and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Kristan Horton (b. 1971, lives Montreal) is a Canadian contemporary artist known for his innovative and multidisciplinary approach to art. Horton's work spans across photography, sculpture, video, and installation, often blurring the boundaries between these mediums. He is celebrated for his conceptual explorations that combine meticulous craftsmanship with a playful, experimental spirit. His work frequently engages with themes of perception, memory, and the interplay between reality and representation. He is acclaimed for his ability to transform everyday objects and materials into thought-provoking artworks that challenge conventional interpretations and invite viewers to reconsider their surroundings. Horton has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, with his works featured in prominent galleries and museums. He has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to contemporary art, solidifying his reputation as a leading figure in the Canadian art scene and beyond. Horton studied at Guelph University and the Ontario College of Art and Design. His work has been shown at White Columns, NY; Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich; Glassbox, Paris; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Inter Communications Center, Tokyo; York University Art Gallery; The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver and Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo. His work is held in the collections of AIMIA Collection, Toronto; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; BNC - Banque National du Canada Collection, Montreal; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and RBC Royal Bank of Canada Collection, Toronto among others.
In 1962 at the age of 71, Joseph E. Yoakum (1891-1972) reported having a dream that inspired him to draw. Thereafter the retired veteran began a daily practice and over the next 10 years produced some 2,000 works.
Yoakum was born into poverty, had very little schooling, and at an early age left home to join a circus. He wound up working with several circuses, traveling across the United States as well as abroad and becoming intimately familiar with the world's various landscapes. These experiences would provide the foundational memories that fueled his deeply spiritual vision decades later. When he began to put that vision to paper in his apartment on Chicago's South Side in the early 1960s, Yoakum quickly developed a unique visual language, independent and distinct from other artists in the city, such as those involved in the flourishing Black Arts Movement or the up-and-coming Chicago Imagist group. His drawings-predominantly landscapes in ballpoint pen, colored pencil, pastel, and watercolor and inscribed with locations from all seven continents-reflect the scope of his national and international travels as well as his idiosyncratic and poetic vision of the natural world. Solo exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His work is held many public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; The Menil Collection, Houston; and the MoMA, New York. Joseph Elmer Yoakum lived and worked in Chicago until his death in 1972.
