Opening reception: Friday, September 5, 2025 from 5PM – 8PM
Artist talk + demo: Saturday, September 6 at 1PM
Exhibition run: September 5 – October 10, 2025
Free and open to the public
Versions (detail), 2025, tiled screenprint, 1/1, 38 ¾” x 123” each
Martha Street Studio is pleased to present Two Ways, a solo exhibition by Victoria Day (ON)
Mirrors offer us a view into ourselves and a glimpse at perspectives other than our own. As a visible minority focused on unpacking the complexities of the body in identity, mirrors can be both beloved and contentious objects for Day; compulsively checked or intensely avoided. It is through the mirror that she asks questions, seeks acceptance, and comes to understand perception.
In Two Ways, Day brings the viewer into this relationship with a series of screen printed works that can, and in some cases must, be viewed through the use of mirrors. The artist invites you to compare and contrast the images as they are before you, or as they are reflected – and to consider which perspective rings more true.
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Artist Statement:
Victoria Day’s practice is interdisciplinary but her love for detail and precision runs throughout. Each of her works is informed by her life – as a woman who experiences anxiety, a visible minority, and a mixed-race member of the Korean diaspora in Canada – all with the goal of sparking dialog around gender, race, and mental health.
In recent years, Day’s practice has served as a vital tool to process her liminal cultural identity after the sharp rise in anti-Asian sentiment sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the increase of racism and fascism in the mainstream that has followed. Day’s work is aesthetically inspired by ‘dancheong’- the Korean tradition of architectural painting often found in temples, palaces, and on ornamental objects. The intricacy of dancheong patterns immediately resonated with Day, as if her own predisposition towards laborious modes of making was an affirmation of her Korean heritage. Working with these patterns has been a pathway into Korean culture, a joyful celebration of her Asian identity amidst a barrage of negativity, and a source of mindful healing over the past few years.
Through barriers and physical manipulations Day often produces a glitch effect in her work – a visual signal of misunderstanding, lost communication, and an artefact of error. These glitches communicate the dissonance between the way she sees herself and the way society has categorized her. Physically manipulating screen prints through cutting, pasting, and weaving effectively adds, removes, and disrupts the recognizably Korean motifs to capture her own fractured understanding of her culture and society’s similarly fractured understanding of the diasporic experience.
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Bio:
Victoria Day (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto. She explores the liminal nature of her half-Korean cultural identity through printmaking, collage, ceramics, papermaking, and murals inspired by traditional Korean patterns.
Day graduated from the University of Guelph in 2014. She recently held a solo exhibition at the Open Studio Main Gallery in Toronto and her work can be found in the TD Bank Art Collection. Day’s work has been supported by the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts. She looks forward to upcoming solo exhibitions at Martha Street Studio in Winnipeg, and SNAP Gallery in Edmonton, as well as upcoming residencies at the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York and Kala Art Institute in California.
For more information on Victoria’s practice visit www.artistvictoriaday.com or @artistvictoriaday on Instagram.
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Hours, Location, Accessibility:
Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10AM – 5PM
*closed Saturdays of long weekends
Martha Street Studio is located at 11 Martha Street. A loading zone is located on the street at the front of the building. Martha Street Studio is an accessible space with a lift and two accessible gender-neutral washrooms located on the second floor.