https://www.gretchensankey.com/work daily 0.75 2021-02-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1509916842935-LFYZF2GQRITPF2TULCFB/INDEXShadowOfDoubt.jpg Work     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1502771979320-83ZQSSF1WOFR1V9K9HCA/INDEXDukeumenta.jpg Work https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1509933349945-6APXP53513YPU8AZ3ZMB/INDEX.jpg Work My small ink and gouache drawings and paintings felt too limited, so I began working with composite oil panel clusters and narrative vignettes floating on single pages. These started small and were shown at the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal (1997), then larger works were shown in Toronto at Mercer Union (1999) and Gallery MacDonnell (2001) and Agnes Etherington in Kingston. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530643386555-TNDOOJV0NKRVIZN6HSFK/INDEXBunniesAndGhosts.jpg Work The soul-searching ghost and bunny are each other's trickster. They never seem to tire of playing out high-stakes scenes of destruction, redemption and crude humour. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530647909474-DBC51ZMUT9XK21YYP6DY/Possible+navigation+page+61.jpg Work There remain a few tenacious taboos for women artists. Motherhood and children are generally frowned upon as content. Birth itself is an extreme no no, especially if one admits that the experience can be traumatic and fundamentally destabilizing. Yet, a mother emerges from the ashes: more vulnerable and powerful and passionate than ever. I had no idea I could love so fiercely. I remember being with my children at a rec-center toddler time and overhearing a mother say: “Sleep is an option. Beauty is short-lived. But LOVE is greater than fear.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530409745845-Y4VVNA80IOAMZ6ZHSLXW/21+G+SANKEY+Mountain+slide+detail+Index.jpg Work Craigslist led me to a grieving daughter’s home. Throughout her lifetime, her mother had carefully selected, bought and stored thousands of rolls of wallpaper. Each purchase promised a change; the hope that the new design would herald a more joyful home-life. Yet the rolls remain unhung. This wallpaper series is a contemplation on personal longing and everyday acts of domestic heroism. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1529803861435-RSFDF69G9M5PNSMKV44Z/G+SANKEY+Hell+and+Wonder+title+square.jpg Work https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530408182922-YZNVH8EYHNKYLYJ7VQEA/rainbow+title.jpg Work Rainbows were a pop design motif in the 60s and 70s. They symbolized an explosive range of possibilities and inclusiveness emerging from a much more constrained era. Developing from both World Peace demonstrations and as a symbol of unity and strength for the LGBTQ community, rainbows were a reminder to keep your eyes on the prize and a talisman promising better times ahead. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530740758784-OWGE938V6J4AMF2QCULK/lives+lived+title.jpg Work https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530724358080-IG9HCJSJ1ZVDM08YUSM8/Sammy+Index+2.jpg Work The final animation can be viewed at: https://vimeo.com/195400361 Eighteen years and 57 seconds is an animated meditation on the life of a Toronto street corner and the moments surrounding the brutal death of a vulnerable youth. Sammy Yatim was a teenager in crisis, shot 9 times by an individual trusted to serve and protect. Although the police officer at the forefront of this tragedy has been found guilty of attempted murder, the victim's family still bears the scars of their son's vilification. Eighteen years and 57 seconds is an appeal for compassionate humanization in the face of abuses of power. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530721636353-ZNADD00SACG4K3V18THI/SANKEY+following+orders+detail+small+INDEX.jpg Work somebody’s baby Every parent knows this: we change the moment our child is born. Becoming stronger than we thought possible---we are also far more vulnerable. We fear that our children will carelessly play their way into injury. Or perhaps a tragic twist of circumstances will truncate their potential. One of our most chilling fears even has a name: Stranger Danger - that our child will fall victim to the machinations of some isolated sociopath. But what we don’t imagine is that our children will suffer and perhaps die alone, confused and terrified, systemically victimized by the services ostensibly designed to protect them. And yet, it happens; at this moment, there are approximately 1,800 Canadians inmates in solitary confinement, some as young as twelve years old. The practice is proven to cause severe long-term psychiatric trauma. Paradoxically, undiagnosed or under-treated mental health disorders frequently underlie the incident that lead to initial incarceration. The link between psychiatric challenges, institutional abuse and the penal system is a slippery and well-worn slope - one with which our family has some experience. Our daughter’s struggle with multiple neurological disabilities has cast shadows over many of the silly joys of childhood, the darkest resulting from misinformed and punitive responses to moments of mental health crisis. Our daughter’s experiences have also revealed a core of brave resilience, insight and love. But while we look forward to building on these strengths as we guide her into adulthood, many families are not nearly as fortunate. By all accounts, Ashley Smith shared many of our daughter’s qualities. Yet in 2007, nineteen year old Smith died at the Grand Valley Institute for Women in Kitchener, Ontario. At that point, she had been in continuous solitary confinement for almost a year. Over her brief lifetime, more than 1000 days were spent in segregation in federal and youth custody. During the lengthy inquest into her death (2009-2013), many media outlets broadcast sensationalized imagery from her institutional abuse, including footage of her death, which correctional officers observed and recorded, yet did not intervene. Although this documentation ultimately served as persuasive evidence that lead to a verdict of homicide, its exceptionally graphic nature also tended to reinforce the illusion that horrific things only happen to vilified others. (In 2012, after viewing the footage, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed to make changes to Corrections Canada’s methods, but nothing was done. Hopes have been cautiously raised with the election of Justin Trudeau, who has tasked Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould with implementing the recommendations of the inquest.) somebody’s baby is a reflection on the speed with which a mental health crisis may descend into criminalization and incarceration. When we discover the relative innocence of Ashley Smith’s initial infraction, throwing crab apples at a postal worker, we realize how easy it is to blame the victim. As I began researching and discussing this tragedy with colleagues, I learned that many recalled only the horrific evidence broadcast during the inquest, depicting a young offender who committed suicide. This terminology tightly circumscribes and muffles the threat the narrative poses on our sense of justice and safety. Ashley’s mother, Coralee Smith, fought and won a trial concluding that Ashley did not take her own life -- it was brutally stolen from her. She also campaigned to protect her daughter’s memory, not as an offender, but as an individual who was barely out of childhood. Coralee Smith was, and remains, somebody’s mother. This work aims to engage the viewer’s compassion and awareness that every life is precious and vulnerable. And everybody is somebody’s baby. This show would not have been possible without Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Kim Pate (Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies), Dana Bingley, (catalog essay below) and Ashley Smith’s family. Gretchen Sankey November 2015 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530638503703-NY5MRPZCH4NM4DJL84RR/new+work+title+tile.jpg Work This page covers work starting in 2017 that has not yet distilled into its own independent series. I often develop several bodies of work simultaneously, listening for convergences and think of this as a valley full of rivers, flowing in different directions, at different speeds. Once they meet, they may feed a pond. I try my best to be aware of this occurrence and, metaphorically, shift my attention to plumbing the pooling water’s depths. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1613940062432-M82QY1L1NE1QZJVPPTV6/GretchenSankey_detailOvaltine.jpg Work - (detail) Ovaltine, watercolour on paper, 22" x 30", 2019 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1613944145588-NI5LDE05IFIUW7IDQF55/Architect%2527s%2Bchair%2Bfinal%2BSQUARE.jpg Work - The architect's wheel chair, graphite on yupo paper https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1613961694380-8G2F9YV99CV462ME6GGK/wellness+check+police+tape.jpg Work https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1613961949325-NLX0E1FRJMG0CBWB6CDJ/IMG_0348.jpg Work https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1509995764882-4PJEX0K574SDWIIMVAXL/08gs2008rapunseldetail+Index.jpg Work The development of microinstallations ran simultaneous to my composite drawing work and large scale sculptural installations. Some scenarios no longer made sense on paper; they had to be told in actual physical space. With a narrative fusion of religious parables, school-yard trash talk, survivor tales and Saturday morning cartoons, I began to make small scenes, or miniature film sets. These began to cluster into more elaborate narrative sequences. Initially, this work was envisioned in one-point perspective, which produced a strange, breathless stillness. As the imagery became elaborate, more dynamic and fluid angles appeared. Similar to my drawing and painting work at the time, the gallery wall was now the picture plane that the three-dimensional elements floated along, like a flotilla. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1614019987191-ABGFX3IU7Q24944GP873/GSANKEYBarbieShroud19972.jpg Work https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1509843586427-7GDFN33Y63EQALPJOPXK/GSANKEYTattoo1990+Index.jpg Work https://www.gretchensankey.com/work-avenue daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://www.gretchensankey.com/about-1 daily 0.75 2018-07-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1502763073196-11VB5R7ENLBTJWNISBA8/image-asset.jpeg About Still from eighteen years and 57 seconds, a time-lapse animation about Sammy Yatim (2016) https://www.gretchensankey.com/first-page daily 1.0 2018-07-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/598bc2c99f7456493d07b72f/1530887436330-Q19XZ2IXXRHSIQ9WNYG7/Title+page+2.jpg Home