'Any Given Time' by Bea Parsons '12 at Franz Kaka Gallery, Toronto

By
Nicole Saldarriaga
May 26, 2021

Any Given Time, a new exhibition by alumna Bea Parsons '12, is available for viewing at Franz Kaka Gallery in Toronto. 

In the monoprints that make up this exhibition, "Parsons suggests time as a series of looped and stochastic passages that can be navigated with the aid of ancestral wisdom," according to Franz Kaka. This distortion of time and negation of linear progression is particularly appropriate after a year in which, despite having time in abundance, most of us felt stuck. Any Given Time was affected by this in more ways than one, with the exhibition date being pushed back multiple times, as well as Parson's access to the print shop where she produces her work. 

"Easily distorted under the pressure of larger ecological and political forces," says the press release, "in Any Given Time, time as a concept and unit of measurement is ripe for intervention. Though the distance felt throughout this past year has often been one of proximity, Parsons instead uses time's vulnerability to shorten temporal distances, connecting generations of knowledge to her own contemporary experience of the world and its material and psychic phenomenon." 

The exhibition will be available for viewing through May 29, 2021. 

Visual art by Parsons

Bea Parsons is based in Tiohtia:ke/Montreal, Quebec where she is represented by McBride Contemporain. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University of New York (2012) and a BFA in Painting & Drawing (2010) and Art Education (2008) from Concordia University. Parsons has taught full time at Concordia University, Montreal (2017-2019), UC Davis (2016-2015), and the University of Texas, Austin (2013-2015). Children’s art education plays a vital role in her career through her teaching at Montreal’s Visual Art Center and a teaching residency a Winnipeg’s Art City. Parsons has participated in residences including the Catwalk Institute (NY), the Kala Institute (Berkley, CA) and the Wallace Stegner House (Eastend Saskatchewan, Canada). In 2012 she was the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Grant in New York City. Her work is included in numerous collections including the Musée d'art de Joliette and Hydro-Quebec.