Andrea Pinheiro @ cHURCH OF MONIKA

February 21st, 11am
on Zoom, Meeting ID: 885 5059 3452

For the past few years I’ve been collecting and working with clay from the river near my home in Searchmont, Ontario. I began by making small burnished pinch pots that I’d pit-fire and then give away. I borrow the clay from the land, I give it away freely. I knew that by learning how to work with the endemic clay that I would intrinsically develop a deeper understanding of the land where I live. I will talk about how following this desire to learn the land through the clay has led me to becoming rather consumed by soil, clay and biochar soil amendments (terra preta), gardening, seed saving, composting, and chickens.

Andrea Pinheiro works in photography, print, paint, film, clay, and installation, weaving together elements of documentary and collecting practices with the poetics of embodied experience. Her work is distilled from experience of place, and is intertwined with consideration of the long and complex histories of land, objects, and materials. Referencing historical events, significant sites, or other artworks, the images and materials in Pinheiro’s work become vessels that record her interactions; gestures that oscillate between creative and destructive processes of transformation. Her most recent work is focused on collaborating with the land to build soil and food. Pinheiro has exhibited across Canada and internationally. She has completed numerous national and international residencies. Her work is represented by Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto and Republic Gallery in Vancouver. Pinheiro went to school at White Mountain Academy of the Arts in Elliot Lake, Ontario and University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta and is currently an Associate Professor at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She is the Founder of 180 Projects, an experimental / ad hoc exhibition space in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and lives and works along the Goulais River in Searchmont and Big Basswood Lake; in the Huron Robinson Treaty area in the territory of the Anishinaabeg Nation.

Featured Image (top): Vessel offering, Shiprock uranium tailings, 2018