Digging a Hole with a Garden Hose- Shelby Charlesworth
Digging a Hole with a Garden Hose- Shelby Charlesworth
My interests lie in the slippage between absence and presence; the ephemeral and fixed. I use porcelain, embroidery, printmaking, textiles, and found objects to create compositions that relate to the temporality and permanence of the body. Tracing spaces once touched, seeking comfort in an absent hand, I ground my work in personal experiences and a larger social context to investigate themes of loss, longing, grief and collective trauma.
My recent explorations have examined the systemic impact of capitalism creating personal feelings of failure, as well as how perceptions of failure societally relate to experiences of gender and queer identity. Through mass-production of small, familiar items like buttons, pencils, and handkerchiefs, I repeatedly and laboriously create amassments of delicate objects – emphasizing themes of invisible labour, collective fragilities, and the imperfections of homogenized systems. These, alongside quilts and other labour-intensive handmade objects, form a large interdisciplinary body of work that underlie the necessity for empathy, emotional labour, and quiet ‘failures’ to begin understanding queer experiences.
The exhibition, Digging a Hole with a Garden Hose, explores multiple iterations of my own invisible labours and ‘failures’ as modes of survival, while also offering a window into common themes of queer resistance and persistence in critiquing the traps of capitalism. Cracked flesh, an aching back, still, I must persist.
I would like to thank Jason Bernard, Brett Bonk, Nyssa Brown, CC Crough, Kathy Crough, Kyle Crough and Mary-Anne McTrowe for your ongoing support in the making of this work, as well as Fuse33 Makerspace, Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society, Casa Lethbridge, and International Avenue Arts Culture Community for their resources and support for works featured in this exhibition.
Shelby Charlesworth is an interdisciplinary artist and educator, currently located in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). Shelby began her career attending Alberta University of the Arts (formerly Alberta College of Art and Design) where she participated in an exchange program at PNCA in Portland, Oregon in 2015 – graduating in 2017 with a BFA in Painting. Shelby then received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut in 2021, where she later taught and was awarded as Instructor of Record for Sculpture. Following her MFA, she relocated to Los Angeles where she worked as a studio assistant, sculptor and ceramicist before returning to Alberta in 2022 to be the Sculpture Technician at the University of Lethbridge. She is now a Sessional Instructor in sculpture at the University of Calgary and the Community Partnerships Coordinator at the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre.
In 2023, Shelby received an Individual Project Grant from Calgary Arts Development to research the impacts of the opioid epidemic on Canada, working closely with researchers in public health and harm reduction. She also received an Artist Development Microgrant through CADA, and was an Artist in Residence through International Avenue Arts and Culture Centre at Fuse33 Makerspace in Calgary. Through her residency at Casa in August of 2022, the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge presented her with the Artist in Residence Award and she was the recipient of the Pilot Art Award for 2022-23.
Date:April 5th, 2025 - May 30th, 2025
Location:Casa - Main Gallery
Casa Program Guide
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