Janice Kerbel

i8 Gallery is pleased to present nine new mosaic works by Janice Kerbel, in her third solo exhibition at the gallery.

Kerbel’s newest body of work explores the materiality of language, particularly its permanence and impermanence. For this exhibition, the artist isolates a series of letterforms, presenting each as an individual work. The letters appear in the familiar typeface Times New Roman, in various capitalizations, scales, and positions within panels distributed across the exhibition space.

While type increasingly exists in digital form, Kerbel uses glass smalti mosaic, an ancient form of depiction, to render this selection of letters. By suspending their communicative function and freeing them from their conventional typographic setting, each letter is given height, weight, materiality, and temporality through the physical presence of mosaic.

Janice Kerbel (b.1969, Toronto) lives and works in London. Kerbel’s Ride of Life is a permanent mosaic, located inside the new Caledonia subway station in Toronto. The artist’s work Doug, commissioned by The Common Guild, Glasgow, was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2015. Kerbel is Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. 

Kerbel has had solo exhibitions at institutions worldwide including Tate Britain, London; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Common Guild, Glasgow; The Arts Club of Chicago; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsrhue; Fundação de Serralves, Porto; and Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Alberta.  Her work has been exhibited at many international venues including: STPI, Singapore; National Gallery Prague; V-A-C Foundation, Venice; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Kölnischer Kunstverein; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal; Art Gallery Ontario; and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.