Corine van Hoeve
brickworks (Duo Exhibit with Susan Barton-Tait) |
| Art Fair Hamilton 2025 |
 The Cotton Factory, Storehouse 248, Hamilton, ON |
 thousand bricks, S. Barton-Tait, Hand Made Paper, 2025
_05.JPG) Untitled (Large Brick), Oil on Canvas, 66x78, 2025
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 brickworks Installation Photo, 2025
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 Paintings |
brickworks is an exhibition of paintings and hand-made paper sculptures that touch on the historicity of Canada through the utilitarian object of a brick. The image of a red brick is physically embedded in the regional architecture of Hamilton’s neighbourhoods, but also becomes a deeply seeded memory that permeates the consciousness of Hamiltonians. Susan Barton-Tait and Corine van Hoeve both use these iconic red bricks as symbols, references, and material traces in their work. Functioning as a kind of social archeology, Susan Barton-Tait molds, folds, and forms over one thousand hand made paper bricks into an expansive mound. It is a gesture that recognizes the labour intensive processes in brick making and their use in the foundation of Hamilton. Using hand ground brick pigment in her oil paints, Corine van Hoeve celebrates the humble brick in her gridded typologies by framing the subtle nuances that exist in a hand-made serialized object. Her larger scaled oil paintings of stacked and larger-than-life-sized bricks become like heroic portraits that elevate this utilitarian object beyond its intended use. |
Using processes that reflect their respective disciplines Susan Barton-Tait and Corine van Hoeve reframe and reimagine the humble Hamilton brick as a social, and cultural signifier. Their approaches to making reflect processes of labour and memory embedded within Hamilton’s core values and history as a working class city. And they make visible the influences of architecture in our daily lives. |
Text by Natalie Hunter, Curator |