Thea Yabut

Leila Greiche presents Fossa Ovalis, Thea Yabut’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

The inscribed surfaces of Thea Yabut’s work brings identity to an intimate process of materiality, pattern, and improvisation. Her low-relief sculptures embody the physical act of their construction while the repeating textures demonstrate a meditative and durational activity. Thea holds a sustained interest in highlighting the mutability of her material and its potential to encapsulate time. Embedded in the surface of her works are notations of how it transformed from a wet malleable paper clay into a fossilized record of touch.

Thea views ornamentation as a powerful tool for navigating her diasporic experience, for reclaiming agency, and for connecting to her Filipina ancestry. The works are pinned to the wall with hand-formed clay and bronze fasteners. Made with the ancient technique of lost wax casting, the metal elements of the work have an open connection to the gold jewelry and artifacts of pre-colonial Philippines with references that stemmed from the natural world such as flowers, shells, and animals.

Within anatomy, a fossa ovalis is an oval shaped indentation located on the wall between the right and left atrium of the human heart. Considered an embryonic remnant, it originally functioned as a passageway for blood to flow between the two chambers during fetal development. Shortly after birth, the introduction of air in the lungs creates a pressure that seals the opening; marking the heart’s transition towards pumping in a self-sufficient manner. For the artist, the fossa ovalis of the sculptures could be considered the innermost point or the first recorded imprint that was made with her fingers. That initial action set the course for how the rest of the work was formed. From there, spine-like patterns are rhythmically produced, mirroring the synchronic beating of the heart.

Thea’s intricately textured sculptures take form within the atrium of the gallery whose walls mimic bodily curvatures.

Thea Yabut (b. 1985, Vancouver, Canada) completed an MFA from Western University and a BFA from Alberta University of the Arts. She has previously exhibited at Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal; Ada Project, Rome; L’Inconnue, Montreal; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York. From 2019-2020 she was Artist-In-Residence in Drawing at Concordia University. She is currently based in Montréal, Canada.