As Sonja Ahlers assembles her exhibit Make Art Like Me, it's as though the whole room is a collage. Her process involves bringing art pieces in and out, some of which she has stored over her career (such as a framed heart-shaped ketchup chip from 2003), as well as objects, and playing around with what works well together.
"The gallery and the architecture always inform the work for me. It's kind of amazing," she said.
No matter the exhibit she is working on, one part of the approach remains the same: centring exhibitions around an 'anchor piece'.
"I build the installation around those pieces," she said. In this exhibit that anchor piece is her giant toe shoe collection discarded from the National Ballet - "almost 100 pairs hammered into the wall in a uniform formation".
She calls it The Last Time.
"It might be my last time showing them. I treat every show like it is the last show because I tend to give the work everything I have just in case that's it," she said.
The exhibition, which runs Sept. 6 to Oct. 5 at Deluge Contemporary Art, is titled Make Art Like Me because of Ahlers' hope: "I wish everyone would make art."
Ahlers is a Renaissance soul, creating work that intertwines words, images, objects and actions. The second last time she exhibited at Deluge was in 2000; since then she's been in several provinces and her work has seen several incarnations.
One fascinating aspect of revisiting art, Ahlers finds, is how certain meanings or messages behind it can change with time. Take, for instance, her piece The Lives of Girls and Women. It's based on the title of Alice Munro book and has come to have quite a different meaning for her now - given the recent claims from Munro's daughter that her mother did not support her after Munro's husband had sexually assaulted her.
The news puts the painting in a far different light than when she created it in 2011 in the Yukon, Ahlers said. At the time, Ahlers had been drawing in the lettering of the word 'women' in black but had gotten bored by the time just the words 'omen' were coloured in. Seeing it now gave her a visceral reaction.
"I was completely stunned and shocked by this piece given all that has surfaced in the last few months. That said, my work speaks to girls and women – it's my obsession and my life's work. I just want to support and hold space for those voices."
As part of the exhibit, Ahlers will also lead a DIY Zine/Collage workshop on Sept. 22 at Deluge, which is free but with limited registration spots available. Her collage art will be thoughtfully placed throughout the exhibition, such as a collage meant to represent her fridge at home.
"I work out ideas on my fridge," she said.
Looking at how the pieces are coming together in the brightly lit gallery, Ahlers expresses her excitement for the exhibit.
"It's a big luxury because sometimes I only have a desktop to work on so I work really small with collage and text pieces," she said.
The exhibit will also have a video installation.
