Original Art Piece

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Flashe, acrylic, spray paint, coloured pencil on raw canvas.

40x60"

Fortitude 40" x 60" (part of the Mirror Collection)

"To see good in others is to see good in yourself.
To see strength in others is to recognize strength in yourself.
To see pain in others is to honour the pain your own heart holds.
To see fragility in others is to make peace with your own vulnerability.

To embody Fortitude, is to be at ease with the exhaustion that comes from being resilient.

One final homage to the Mirror collection is this painting that celebrates the strength and fragility of the people who make up the city of Hamilton. The strong and powerful, the meek and fragile, the wealthy and the working class. The communities who work together, the groups who clash. The tall rises with glass windows that look down on the steel mills and paved roads that support them. A reminder that glass can be cracked, fractured and chipped, and yet, still remain intact; a reminder that steel can be bent, warped and dented, but it cannot be broken."

The Mirror collection is an exploration of who people are according to themselves vs. who people appear to be to others, and whether these two "identities" are actually one in the same or entirely different personas. The artist asks the question of whether or not one's sense of Self can exist without the context of who she is according to other people.

The reflection one sees of themselves in a mirror is an inverted image of what others see - a mirror, the tool we use to view ourselves, is not even an accurate depiction of what we look like to others.

The mirror is an unreliable source of reflection but it's ironically used daily to ensure "we look our best" or "look like ourselves" before facing other people. The artist is exploring the concepts of truth and perception as it relates to the Self, and whether or not the identities people claim as their own are naturally formed and inherited at birth or fabricated and curated over the years as a result of life experiences and the influence of other people.

The artist used personal items including clothing, shoes and cosmetics to create these pieces, focusing on the juxtaposition between line work and fluid forms to express the tension between the varying degrees of masculine and feminine energies the artist has identified in herSelf.

Tania LaCaria (Canada b. 1985) is an Italian-Canadian artist. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from York University (2006) and a CIDA advanced diploma in Interior Design from Sheridan College (2009). LaCaria launched her residential interior design consulting firm in 2005 and has since traveled the world extensively, gathering inspiration from various cultures and countries where she’s lived, namely in Latin America and South East Asia. Her travels have always influenced her work in art and design and continue to be an important source of inspiration for her. She returned to Canada and settled in Hamilton in 2016, where she currently lives and works.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

LaCaria’s work explores paradox - the idea that two opposing realities can exist at the same time - with a focus on themes based on gender, sexuality, social structure/class systems, body politics and relationships, often presented in an Abstract Expressionist aesthetic. LaCaria’s mission in life is to form meaningful connections with others, and she does this through her art.

As a conceptual artist, LaCaria thrives in a state of curiosity, eager to ask questions of herself and the world around her during her creative process while admitting she doesn't have the answers. Her background in Interior Design blends seamlessly with her love for visual arts as LaCaria spent the majority of her professional life as a solutionist for her clients. Now, as a full-time professional artist, LaCaria is eager to share her curiosity with others by producing thought-provoking work that prompts viewers to ask questions about themselves and their life experiences.

In order to ensure viewers make an emotional connection to her visual works, LaCaria exhibits and presents her work alongside her poetry, her preferred method of story-telling, to provide additional context to the motivation behind her creative decisions. Her creative process has been described as ‘performative’ with an emphasis on the deep introspection, vulnerability and social observations she is making that are often juxtaposed by the playful, “fun” and seemingly light-hearted way her often brightly colored work presents to viewers.