The Sexual Landscape Recast
Karen Brett
Larrisa Fassler

June 7 - July 7, 2007
Reception: Thursday June 7, 6 - 8 pm
Exhibition Tour - June 7 @ 7 PM with artist Larissa Fassler and essayist Claudia Manley



Image: Karen Brett, The Myth of Sexual Loss, 2002. Courtesy of Ffotogallery Wales Limited.

Larissa Fassler’s Teen Couples I and Teen Couples II and Karen Brett’s The Myth of Sexual Loss explore and
debunk expectations of age and sexuality. From the surprising discomfort displayed by the teens to the graceful
intimacy and composure of the elderly, the viewer is asked to reconsider notions of what it means to be a
sexual being at various stages of life. Fassler and Brett reposition sexuality and desire as a natural development
in the process of aging. The Sexual Landscape Recast is not necessarily the purview of the young, with
taut skin and glowing complexions, but inclusive of the rightful landscape of the elderly, with wrinkles and liver
spots. Neither of these bodies of work allows us to leave with our stereotypes intact. This intergenerational
exhibition, The Sexual Landscape Recast provides a vista from which we can glimpse at how intimacy evolves and
where sexuality can naturally progress.
- Claudia Manley


Image: Larrisa Fassler, Teen Couples II, 2005

Karen Brett Bio:
Karen Brett graduated with honours in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, and completed a Master's degree in Photography at the London College of Communication. Using both still and moving images, Brett explores issues related to mental health, domestic violence, and intimacy in middle age. Brett has had numerous commissions including a touring exhibition with Lilly ICOS to promote the sexual rights of older people as well as Memory Palette a commissioned work co-ordinated by NESA - North East Somerset Arts. Her work has received numerous awards and she has exhibited nationally and internationally. The Myth of Sexual Loss is currently touring with Ffotogallery based in Penarth, Wales. Brett has been published in several journals and is featured in the spring issue of Locus Suspectus. Karen Brett currently lectures in Bristol and Wales.

Larissa Fassler Bio:
Larissa Fassler was born in Vancouver. She completed her MA in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College at the University of London after completely her BFA at Concordia University in 1999. Her work traverses performance-based photography, video, text and built objects. Using the public as both subject and audience, her work documents staged events, and focuses on the complexities of human relationships and emotions in everyday life. Fassler has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Truck Gallery, Articule, YYZ Artists Outlet, Westernfront and La Centrale, and group exhibitions at West Germany in Berlin, Sparwasser HQ in Berlin, ThreeWalls Gallery in Chicago, The Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- & Videofest in Kassel, Germany and the Limerick City Gallery of Art in Limerick, Ireland. Larissa Fassler currently lives and works in Berlin.


EXHIBITION BROCHURE AND ESSAY BY CLAUDIA MANLEY

Claudia B. Manley Bio:
Claudia B. Manley received her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. She has published nonfiction extensively and has a short story forthcoming in the literary journal Calyx. Currently living in Hamilton, Ontario, she teaches writing at both the Ontario College of Art and Design and the University of Western Ontario, and is a member of the Transmission Commission, a Toronto-based collective of artists and writers.