Saints and Madonnas: project X Award 2024

October 11 - November 10, 2024
Solo exhibition at the Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa ON
Curated by Meghan Ho
Framed pigment ink prints on cotton rag paper; custom-made MDF frame; laser-cut pine; hand-applied imitation gold leaf; two plinths containing a miscellany of found and artist-made objects and materials.

In her series Saints and Madonnas, Olivia Johnston engages with photographic portraiture and found objects to explore ideas of holiness in contemporary life. Seeking to represent “the divinity within us all,” her portraits – often depicting members of the Ottawa art community – are suffused with sacred iconography used throughout Western art history. Enclosed in frames that were designed, created and hand-gilded by the artist, the images exist outside the space of the everyday. Here, they are presented alongside shrines made from the artist’s collection of trinkets and medical ephemera, referencing the material culture of Catholicism and considering the connections between trauma – both emotional and physical – and sanctity. Together, Johnston’s work captures the essence of the individual while inviting us to reflect on how sacredness might exist in our increasingly secular world.

- curator Meghan Ho