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About

Gabriela Hirt About.jpeg

Gabriela Hirt is a second career mixed media artist who investigates concepts of connection and separation through abstract human figures in relationship. 

Dark drama and subliminal tension often reverberate in Gabriela’s paintings and sculptures. Raised in post-war Germany in the wake of the Holocaust, her work is informed by family trauma as well as by the collective guilt she inherited. Juxtaposing themes of isolation and belonging is the artist’s attempt to communicate the paradoxes she perceives in herself and in society. 

 

More specifically, Gabriela is aiming to understand the legacy of colonialism in her adopted home in Canada by looking closely at the segregating concepts of hierarchy and superiority subconsciously living in herself and in other white bodies. 

Gabriela uses contrast, simplified forms and bold energetic marks to articulate inner emotional states as well as to invite questions of social justice. She likes to work large.

 

Rooted in her original career as a writer, Gabriela depicts whole narratives in which her stylized people interact. Faces are deliberately treated ambiguously. The focus is on the language of the body which the artist deems not only more subtle, but also more genuine, particularly when it comes to social interactions. 

 

Gabriela’s desire to push the boundaries of awareness  — her own and that of viewers — sparks a process of radical experimentation. Works start with stream-of-consciousness writing followed by several layers of paint applied in large gestural movement to access somatic wisdom. Out of the chaos top layers are carefully composed, reflecting her fascination with the intersection between analytical inquiry and the intuitive. 
 
 
"I strive for my work to be emotionally stirring,
at times unsettling 
and open to interpretation by the viewer.
It is important to me
to express myself authentically
while not shying away from difficult conversations."

EXHIBITIONS

2024

Artist in Residency, SomoS Arts, Berlin, Jan 3 to March 31

2023

Solo Exhibition, Dance On, online with Artwrk.ca, May 26 to June 9

Solo Exhibition, Storied Bodies, Gibsons Public Art Gallery, Gibsons, BC, Jan 12 to Feb 5

13th International Annual Juried Exhibition Liberty & SovereigntyGallery 110, Seattle, USA, Feb 2-25 (Juror, Jamie Isaac, Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria)

Federation of Canadian Artists Juried Summer Exhibition Expressions, Fortune Gallery, Victoria

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Paint-In, July 15

 

2022

Solo Exhibition, Storied Bodies, Gage Gallery, September 13 to October 2

Immigration, Two Rivers Gallery, Prince George, artist fee received, August 4 to October 9 (Juror, George Harris, Curator & Artistic Director, Two Rivers Gallery)

Inside Out, Art@ Bentall Gallery, Bentall Centre, Vancouver

Sooke Fine Arts Show, Sooke, BC

 

2021

Refuge, Group Exhibition, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Sooke Fine Arts Show, Sooke, BC

Summer Small Works, Massey Sales Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Memorial. Monument. Movement. Artagainstracism.org, NJ

Somewhere in Time, Federation of Canadian Artists, Victoria

Solo Exhibition, The Indelible Mark, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Abstracted, Federationgallery, Vancouver

Dreamscape, Gage Gallery, Victoria 

 

2020 

Winter Small Works, Massey Sales Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria 

Crisis, Federationgallery, Vancouver

Looking in-Looking Out, Federation of Canadian Artists, Victoria

8 min & 46 sec, solo window-installation, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Challenge Crisis with Creativity, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Out of the Silence, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Summer Small Works online, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Inside Out, 3-artists exhibition, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Summer Show & Sale, Victoria Arts Council, Victoria

Social Distancing online, Federation of Canadian Artists, Vancouver

CLWAC 123rd Exhibition of Women's Art, The National Arts Club, NYC

Abstracted, Federationgallery, Vancouver

 

2019

Solstice Dreams - The Poetry of Winter, Gage Gallery, Victoria

Winter Small Works, Massey Sales Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

All Planet Earth Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery, Online

The Oak Bay Studio Tour, Victoria

Sidney Fine Arts Show, Sidney, BC

Sooke Fine Arts Show, Sooke, BC

TD Gallery Paint-In, Art Gallery of Greater Greater Victoria

 

2018

Sidney Fine Arts Show, Sidney, BC

 

COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS/ORGANIZER & CURATOR

2022 - The Postcard Climate Project & Show, international participation, show in Victoria

2020 - Challenge Crisis with Creativity, project & show, Victoria

Education

MA Political Science, LMU University, Munich

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