The GNO (Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario) is inviting community members to its new exhibition, le homecoming from visual artist jenna dawn maclellan. The exhibition runs from Friday March 17th to Friday May 5th. An opening reception will be held at the GNO on Friday March 17th at 5 PM.

Textile Art for Northern Ontario

The exhibition brings together a series of textile pieces that reproduce objects commonly associated with rural Northern Ontario. Among other things, the artist has hand-knit a snowmobile – life-sized – a bear skin rug, an anti-mosquito suit, a chainsaw, and a cord of wood.

The exhibition title – le homecoming – refers to jenna dawn maclellan’s return to Northern Ontario after spending a few years in Montreal. Although she grew up in the forestry town of Sioux Lookout, Jenna opted to briefly settle in Sudbury after leaving “la belle province”. She admits to falling for the nickel city’s charms during this time, as witnessed by her exhibition How I Fell In Love With Sudbury, presented at Fromagerie Elgin in 2015.

According to maclellan, her exhibition at the Fromagerie was a kind of precursor to the project she’s preparing for the GNO. While the 2015 exhibition consisted of paintings done on flattened aluminum cans – gathered on the shoulder of Sudbury streets – le homecoming is a return to the world of textile art for this artist who’s been practicing the art of knitting and sewing since her childhood years.

maclellan proudly highlights the fact that she’s part of a long family tradition of knitters. In fact, her mother taught knitting to secondary school students in a domestic arts class. Her grandmother was also a talented knitter.

jenna dawn maclellan’s artistic practice has incorporated textile art since her very first projects. While these initial explorations often included an element of social engagement – for example, when she repaired articles of clothing for Montreal’s homeless population during the État d’urgence event – this new exhibition is a decidedly playful celebration of an entire region and a gift to the community of Greater Sudbury.

The objects knit by maclellan are as familiar as they are fantastic. Being transposed into textile gives an air of storied marvelousness to their otherwise ordinary nature. This is how objects found in so many Northern Ontario sheds and garages are transformed into genuine icons of northernness.

jenna dawn maclellan

jenna dawn maclellan grew up in the community of Sioux Lookout, in Ontario. Ideas of geography, identity, andaccessibility, as well as encounters, have greatly influenced her artistic practice and social engagement. Thanks to her many travels, she has become a narrator, a builder of social sculptures, a guardian of memory, a social activator and transmitter of domestic arts.

Her work has been shown at the Musée des Maîtres et Artisans du Québec, la Maison culture Côte-des-Neiges, le MAI, Diagonale, the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Toronto Free Gallery, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, the Casa de la Cultura de Holguin in Cuba, the Museo Textil d’Oaxaca in Mexico, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago, and La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse.