About the workshop

By forcing metal to rust, artist Dessa Ely gestures towards the act of aging and life’s transformation through time.

In this workshop, Ely will guide participants through the non-toxic chemical process of rusting metal while they create their own images. Participants will be invited to add their new artworks to the exhibition, to be returned to them at the closing of the exhibition on July 14th.

Ely will be holding two (2) metal rusting workshops: One on Thurs, June 8th from 6:30PM - 8PM and the other on Thurs, June 15th from 6:30PM - 8PM.

Please select ONE of the workshop dates you'd like to attend.

Both workshops will be held at Lakeshore Arts' Community Project Space at 2422 Lakeshore Blvd W.

About the exhibition

Throughout June and July, Lakeshore Arts will be hosting an exhibition, titled “As Solid as Skin Can Be" by emerging artist Dessa Ely, featuring work in various mediums on the subject of loss.

Dessa Ely makes images and objects using processes that mimic personal experiences. Through a careful combination of experimental materials and alternative processes, she hands over control from herself to the work, developing objects that are a product of both herself and the rest of the world.

Through her work, Ely examines the impermanence of innocence and childhood in a world that forces girls to grow up too fast, contemplates the fragility of existing as a mixed Asian person in a Western world obsessed with categorization, and explores what it means to process and heal from loss.

Ely creates art through techniques that mirror her own experiences of loss. Cells within a leaf die to produce an image that will eventually fade and decompose. Polaroid images are destroyed so that they may be joined with another image. Images on rice paper warp and contort to objects beneath them. Witnessing pieces of herself being created outside of herself allows Ely to process how these pieces fit within her own identity, and how she fits into the rest of the world.