ONLINE PORTFOLIO REVIEWS

October 14, 2021


Edmonton-based artist Monica Mercedes Martinez and Toronto-based artist David Constantino Salazar share their process and receive feedback from curator Sally Frater. 

Thursday, October 14th, 2021

David Constantino Salazar is a Toronto-based sculptor with a Master in Fine Arts degree from OCAD University. His research focuses on the double intended messages in traditional fable stories. The allegories in his work invite the viewer to reflect on the human experience through traditional animal-based narrative. Salazar’s studio practice is highly focused on the tradition of hand modeling clay and the fabrication process of casting in bronze, resin, or ceramic.

An Ecuadorian-Canadian artist, Salazar examines the confluence of his symbolic and ancestral roots as a South American and his daily life in Canada. A recipient of multiple residencies internationally and domestically, Salazar has represented Canada at the International Biennial of Asuncion (Paraguay) and completed the Studio Research Residency (Flora & Fauna) in Tiradentes, Brazil. In Canada, he was awarded the AKIN Studio Residence Program at MOCA Toronto and has been invited to the Creative Professionals-in-Residence Mentor Program at OCAD University, Salazar recently exhibited, Forever (Bird-Botanicals) at the Gardiner Museum as the artist-in-Residence.

His public commissions include Carnival, Rio de Janeiro (2012) and the Spadina Museum, Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2015). In 2015, he was commissioned by First Capital Realty Inc. for two permanent public art sculptures in Georgetown, Ontario. Salazar is currently working on Hogtown, a public art commission to be installed in Toronto’s west end neighborhood Parkdale.

Monica Mercedes Martínez  is a Canadian process based/performative ceramic artist. As a Chilean who grew up on the Canadian Prairies, she uses her practice to discuss the historical foundations that influence how we define who we are and where we belong. Martinez holds aBFA from AuArts (formally known as the Alberta College of Art+ Design) and an MFA from the University of Manitoba. Martinez has participated in both national and international exhibitions and as well as numerous artist residencies. Martinez is part of the group Mujer Artista and was a member of the art collective CONSTELACIONES. 

Sally Frater holds an Honours BA in Studio Art from the University of Guelph and an MA in Contemporary Art from The University of Manchester/Sotheby's Institute of Art. Curatorially she is interested in decolonization, space and place, Black and Caribbean diasporas, photography, art of the everyday, and issues of equity and representation in museological spaces. She has curated solo and group exhibitions for institutions such as the Art Gallery of Guelph, the Ulrich Museum of Art, the McColl Center for Art and Innovation, Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, Project Row Houses, and Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice. A former resident in the Core Critical Studies fellowship at the Glassell School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Frater has also completed fellowships and residencies at the UT Dallas Centraltrak, Southern Methodist University, Project Row Houses and Art21. The recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts she is a member of the Association of Art Museum Curators and is an alumna of Independent Curators International. Recently the executive director of Oakville Galleries she is currently the co-director of Artistic Programs at Emerging Curators Institute.

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