Seth: A Life, All Play
Featuring the work of graphic novelist and artist Seth, A Life, All Play focuses on the creative exploration that is integral to his storytelling, captured in a dense and lush installation that highlights his life in the studio as well as finished works – from sketchbooks, scrapbooks, and cardboard maquettes, to comic pages, ceramics and dioramas, including his model city Dominion. Illustrating a process-oriented practice that is not much different from the way he made things as a child, the work on view encompasses the same childhood inspirations – comic books, toys and models, as well as DIY materials such as cardboard, poster paint, and glue. Reflecting a practice infused with genuine play, Seth has noted, “Sometimes this process leads to finished works, but sometimes it is just about the process itself – following a road that doesn’t always lead to a destination. Sometimes just walking down the road is the point.”
Image detail: Seth, Window Shopper, 2017, ink on paper with digital colour. Collection of the artist
Gallery
About the artist
Seth
The cartoonist behind the comic book series Palookaville and the recent publication Clyde Fans, Seth’s comics have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Best American Comics, and McSweeneys Quarterly. His illustrations have also appeared in numerous publications including the cover of The New Yorker, The Walrus, and Canadian Notes & Queries. Based in Guelph, Seth’s work has been the focus of solo exhibitions, including Dominion (multiple venues), Bannock, Beans and Black Tea (Confederation Centre Art Gallery, 2005), Seth (Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 2006), Dominion-Beaver (RENDER/University of Waterloo, 2008), and Heading to Palookaville (Peel Art Museum and Archives, 2017). Group exhibitions include Speak: Nine Cartoonists (Pratt Institute, 2006), Uninked (Phoenix Art Gallery, 2007), Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood (Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017), Omnis Temporalis (Richmond Art Gallery, 2017), and This is Serious. Canadian Indie Comics (Hamilton Art Gallery, 2019). He is the subject of the documentary Seth’s Dominion and has been involved in several animated adaptations of his comic books.
View More Exhibitions
exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
This work chronicles the artist’s experience of pregnancy amid reports of high maternal mortality rates experienced by Black women in the U.S.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
The first exhibition to explore pioneering feminist artist Mary Kelly’s long engagement with activist movements.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Connecting aspects of Indigenous cosmology to wider cultural meanings, this exhibition speaks to the idea of seeing through space.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
This exhibition speaks to the connections between art and social activism and to the visual aesthetics that emerge from protest.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Taking root during pandemic lockdowns, this installation acknowledges loss while offering a space for grief and mourning.
exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
Curated by Middlebrook Prize recipient Erin Szikora, Homecoming engages land, language, and community, offering strategies to rethink our relationships to home.
exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
Examining intersections between botanical explorations and colonization, Anahita Norouzi focuses on the plant colloquially referred to as giant hogweed.
exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
This exhibition of Haudenosaunee souvenir beadworks responds to the history of ethnographic collecting by celebrating personal, economic, and cultural value.