A House is Not a Home

Artists: Thomas Barger (Brooklyn, USA) + Claire Milbrath (Victoria, Canada)
Exhibition: June 10 – July 17, 2021

Building a home from scratch is a matter of deepening self-knowledge as the details of pattern of our life, weaved in with hopes and aspirations, are examined. Those desires, bottled-up in our bodies have to be observed with frankness for the outcome to be fitting. This period of heightened consciousness, both physical and emotional also speaks of Thomas Barger's and Claire Milbrath's creative process- those same questionings reflect the structure, relationship, and narratives of their own lives, and from series to series, mark the ceaseless cycles of transition and evolution as they slowly integrate within a greater whole.

We often say that the kitchen is the heart of the home, a place for the family to gather and to be nourished. After moving back to her coastal hometown of Victoria, Canada, last Fall, Milbrath began a new series of kitchen scenes as a way to conjure a better reality for herself. Painting spaces symbolizing stability, feminine strength and family, marked new beginnings after tumultuous times. As this developed into a series and expanded beyond the kitchen and into the garden and kink scenes, the eponymous figure of (Poor) Gray, also grew in strength and pétillance, his body filling in with muscles, healthy locks of curls, and pink cheeks. Milbrath's alter ego also found himself loyal companions, a group of fuffy bichons that can also be seen as a portrait of the artist, embodying grounding and blossoming desires that Milbrath is now pursuing.

Thomas Barger’s paper pulp sculptures exude a quirkiness that goes beyond the utility of the object. With their rounded edges and vibrant vitamin-like colours, one might imagine that the work has been licked into shape, softening it into a giant, delectable treat. The recurrent single hole or perforated pattern in Barger’s sculptures holds several significances for the artist, connecting the strictness of his upbringing to sexual expression. For Barger, who was raised on a farm in the American Midwest, working through the symbolism of the chair is also a way of questioning domesticity, religion, hetero-conventions, and queerness in regards to his roots. His sculptures, while retaining some memory of their past lives, project both a simplicity and an inventiveness that reveal Barger’s process as clarifying introspection.

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Biographies

Thomas Barger (b. 1992) lives and works in Brooklyn, USA. Originally from a rural Cattle farm in Mattoon, Illinois, Barger came to New York in order to access his own homosexual identity at a distance from his rural, conservative, religious background. Amidst this new chosen environment. Barger’s work has been a process of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual exploration grounded in craft, narrative, and humour. Thomas Barger studied architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He recently had solo shows at Fisher Parish, New York (2020), Sargents Daughters, New York (2018), and Functional Art, Berlin (2018). Domestic Times, Domestic Mind at Projet Pangée is his frst exhbition in Canada. He is represented by Salon 94 Design, New York.

Claire Milbrath (b.1989) is a self-taught artist working with painting, sewing, and drawing. Adopting an artistic style reminiscent of the Naive Painters, Milbrath incorporates large swaths of lush color to construct her compositional space, renewing the coloristic tradition with vignettes relating to unrequited love, sexual fantasies, and childhood innocence. For Milbrath, removing the sexualized female body from the painting is a way to reinstate a practice free from gendered norms. In her recent body of work presented at Projet Pangée, Milbrath discloses biographical elements to her paintings as a way to harmonize aspirations into her personal life. She has been actively exhibiting her work in recent years in both solo and group exhibitions. Recent exhibitions were presented at Projet Pangée, Montreal, (2020); Steve Turner, Los Angeles, (2020); Marie-Laure Fleisch, Brussels, 2019). She is the editor-in-chief and founder of Editorial Magazine.