Sheila Spence, If William Morris was a Woman, 2023. Detail. Digitally scanned photograph.
- Saturday, April 5, 2025
- 2:00pm – 3:30pm
- Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd, Winnipeg, MB
Presented in partnership with FLASH Photographic Festival
Free, all welcome!
As part of Divergence & Connection, an exhibition of the work of 12 artists opening April 3 at MHC Gallery, MAWA and FLASH are presenting a free artist talk by Sheila Spence.
Sheila Spence will speak about her body of images, Lexicon for Loss, started in 2023. Profound personal loss coinciding with a major move from the prairies to Vancouver Island gave rise to this exploration. Images are captured on a flat-bed scanner in her garden in Sidney, British Columbia, and reference 17th century floral paintings of the style of the Dutch Masters. The scanner handles highlight and shadow in a specific way that creates a chiaroscuro effect that is reminiscent of the lighting techniques of still life paintings. Like the still life paintings of the 17th century, Lexicon for Loss images evoke the passage of time and/or the impermanence of life.
Sheila Spence is a lens-based artist, activist and arts administrator living and working in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Spence’s photographs investigate notions of portraiture, self-portraiture, community, and identity. Her portraits have been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally and are included in public and corporate collections across Canada. Over the course of her career, Spence has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Winnipeg Arts Council.