Two words which come to mind when I think of Erika DeFreitas’ art are unforced and honest. When I’ve sat in galleries studying her art, I’ve always felt there’s a natural connection between her ideas, the materials and the overall visual presentation. She’s like a chef who doesn’t hide or mask their ingredients. Erika’s work is balanced and well considered and it’s not trying to be something which it is not.
Born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario and of mixed Trinidadian and Guyanese descent Erika is one of Canada’s fastest rising contemporary artists. She’s had multiple solo and group exhibitions including The Work of Mourning at the Art Gallery of Mississauga in 2015, In The Bedroom at Gallery 44, Toronto in 2009 as well as Like a conjuring, Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts, Winnipeg in 2018. The artist’s residencies she has attended have included Alice Yard, Trinidad and Tobago in 2017, Hospitalfield, Arbroath, Scotland in 2018 and at Cycladic Arts, Paros, Greece in 2024 In 2016 Erika was a finalist for the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts award as well as John Hartman Award from the MacLaren Art Centre. Her work is included in the collections of Hart House Permanent Collection, Toronto, ON, The Goldfarb Gallery, York University, Toronto, ON and the Deloitte, Vancouver, BC
Some of the themes present in Erika’s work are relationships with her family and the complexity of those relationships. Her mother figures prominently in her work, which is a clever trope not only found in art but in literature and film of casting a recurring character . In her work Erika uses a variety of materials to create imaginative, introspective and challenging pieces such knitted cozies for public transformers, performance of plaster casts of hands being dipped into indigo dye or ceramic forms (created by Adam) of the negative space created between her and her mother’s body parts shown as part of Erika’s 2018 show the aura appeared a few minutes before.
From Erika DeFreitas’ solo show, the aura appeared a few minutes before, 2018.
Erika’s new book (designed by our good friend Sameer Farooq), it’s because of the shimmer, the verge and the yet, by University of Toronto Press is now available through the DMG website.
