Erika DeFreitas (born 1980) is a

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

-based artist who works in textiles, performance and photography.

Early life

Erika DeFreitas was born in Toronto, Canada, with ancestry in

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

. Her grandmother taught baking and

cake decorating Cake decorating is the art of decorating a cake for special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, baby showers, national or religious holidays or as a promotional item. It is a form of sugar sculpture, sugar art that uses materials such as Ici ...

classes at home in Guyana, which later influenced DeFreitas' work ''The Impossible Speech Act'' (2007). DeFreitas' mother has featured heavily in her work as both collaborator and subject, beginning in 2007 as DeFreitas was researching loss and

mourning Mourning is the emotional expression in response to a major life event causing grief, especially loss. It typically occurs as a result of someone's death, especially a loved one. The word is used to describe a complex of behaviors in which t ...

, with a focus on relationships and her own fear of losing her mother. Her relationship with her mother has been a large part of her work. Says DeFreitas, "Some of the major themes in my practice are mourning and loss,

matrilineal Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritan ...

narratives, post memory, and cultural identity".

Education

DeFreitas earned a Master of Visual Studies from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

(2008); a Bachelor of Education from

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

(2004) and a Bachelor of Art and Art History from the University of Toronto (2003).

Career

Through a

postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

lens, Erika DeFreitas explores language, cultural loss and

identity politics Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, Race (human categorization), race, nationality, religion, Religious denomination, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, Socioeconomic status, social background ...

and places emphasis on process, the gesture and documentation. She has been awarded the 2016 Finalist Artist Prize from the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts and the 2016

John Hartman John Hartman (March 18, 1950 – December 29, 2021) was an American drummer who was a co-founder and original drummer of the Doobie Brothers. At the band's inception, Hartman was the sole drummer. However, in late 1971, the group added drummer ...

Award from the

MacLaren Art Centre The MacLaren Art Centre is an art gallery and museum, located in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. It is named in honour of Maurice MacLaren, who bequeathed his Victorian home, Maple Hill, to the Barrie Gallery Project in 1989. The MacLaren Art Centre l ...

Barrie Barrie is a city in Central Ontario, Canada, about north of Toronto. The city is within Simcoe County and located along the shores of Kempenfelt Bay. Although it is physically in the county, Barrie is politically independent. The city is part ...

, ON. DeFreitas was

artist-in-residence Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

at Alice Yard,

Port of Spain Port of Spain ( ; Trinidadian and Tobagonian English, Trinidadian English: ''Port ah Spain'' ) is the capital and chief port of Trinidad and Tobago. With a municipal population of 49,867 (2017), an urban population of 81,142 and a transient dail ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

(2017; Also As Well Too,

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

, MB (2015); and

Mentoring Artists for Women's Art Mentoring Artists for Women's Art (MAWA) is a feminist visual arts education center based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Created in 1984, this non-profit organization encourages and supports the intellectual and creative development of women in the visual a ...

(MAWA),

, MB (2010). DeFeitas created a series aptly named ''Pass-port'' where she manipulated her passport to explore the

ambiguities Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making for several interpretations; others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A common aspect of ambiguit ...

of her own identity and nationality. In 2003 DeFreitas completed a project called ''Something Pretty Cozy'', literally covering street fixtures with yarn cozies. She created the

tatting Tatting is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops. Tatting can be used to make lace edging as well as doilies, collars, accessories such as earrings, necklaces, waist beads, and other decor ...

tradition by exhibiting

doilies A doily (also doiley, doilie, doyly, or doyley) is an ornamental mat, typically made of paper or fabric, and variously used for protecting surfaces or binding flowers, in food service presentation, or as a clothing ornamentation, as well as ...

but in the

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

format of digital prints depicting the artist manipulating the objects with her body. DeFreitas continued the manipulation and examination of her body versus objects in a series of photographs called ''I Am Not Tragically Colored (after

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo ...

)'' where she distorted her face against a piece of glass that separated the viewer and herself. DeFreitas' work can be found in many permanent collections, including Wedge Curatorial Projects; Hart House Permanent Collection;

Feminist Art Gallery Feminist Art Gallery (or FAG) is an art gallery and collective based in Toronto, Ontario, described as a “geographical footprint” co-founded by artists Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue in 2010. History Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre ...

(F.A.G.);

Canada Council Art Bank The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study a ...

; and

TD Canada Trust TD Canada Trust, commonly shortened in marketing to simply TD, is the Canadian commercial banking division of the multinational TD Bank Group. It is the list of banks and credit unions in Canada, second-largest commercial bank in Canada by assets ...

Art Collection. DeFreitas is the recipient of several municipal, provincial and federal awards and grants from the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, the

Ontario Arts Council The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by O ...

, and the

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study a ...

. Erika DeFreitas' work has been exhibited in Canada and the United States of America. Solo exhibitions explore ideas of absence, loss,

memorialization Memorialization is the process of preserving memories, especially the collective memory, of people or events. It can be a form of a memorial, and address or petition, or a ceremony of remembrance or commemoration. Memorialisation and transitiona ...

and ritual, including the 2015 exhibition ''The Work of Mourning'',

Art Gallery of Mississauga The Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM) is a public, not-for-profit art gallery in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the Mississauga Civic Centre right on Celebration Square across from Square One Mall. The Gallery is open six days per w ...

Mississauga Mississauga is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto (Etobicoke) to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, ...

, ON and ''Deaths/Memorials/Births'', presented in 2013 at the Centre for Print and Media Arts,

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

, ON. and 2008 at Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts,

, MB. DeFreitas was inspired by her mother's obsession with reading newspaper

obituaries An obituary (obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Acco ...

and created her work, ''Deaths/Memorials/Births'', where she unpacked the concept of

in newspapers and manipulated these ideas through intuitively cutting and not cutting text from the obituaries to create works evoking found poetry. She continued to be inspired by and sometimes work in collaboration with her mother, such as in the work presented in the 2016 exhibition ''; it was in the air, as they say'' and the 2009 exhibition ''In The Bedroom'', both at Gallery 44, Toronto ON. Their collaborative textile work entitled ''Sometimes the Metonymic Object Is an Absence'', a

crochet Crochet (; ) is a process of creating textiles by using a crochet hook to interlock loops of yarn, thread (yarn), thread, or strands of other materials. The name is derived from the French term ''crochet'', which means 'hook'. Hooks can be made ...

blanket mimicking those in their family home, that visitors are invited to unravel, was included in ''The One and the Many: A Self-Portrait in Seven Parts'', a 2015 group exhibition at

Project Row Houses Project Row Houses is a development in the Third Ward, Houston, Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses includes a group of shotgun houses restored in the 1990s. Eight houses serve as studios for visiting artists. Those houses are ...

(Houston, TX). Her work has also been presented in many group exhibitions, including at the

Art Gallery of Windsor Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

(Windsor, ON); Aljira, a Center of Contemporary Art ( Newark, NJ); Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Toronto, ON), and Houston Museum of African American Culture (Houston, TX) Her work was featured alongside artists Sheila Pree Bright, Kwesi Abbensetts and

Hew Locke Hew Donald Joseph Locke (born 13 October 1959) is a British sculpture, sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2000, he won a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists, Paul Hamlyn Award and the EASTinternational Awar ...

in an issue of Transitions Magazine themed around Black childhood.

Solo exhibitions

* 2020: ''an object, a gesture, a scene,'' Visual Arts Centre of Clarington,

Bowmanville Bowmanville is a community of approximately 40,000 people located in the Municipality of Clarington, Durham Region, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately east of Toronto, and east of Oshawa along Highway 2. Bowmanville was first incorporated a ...

, ON. *2019: ''an object, a gesture, a scene,'
Open Studio

, ON *2019: ''It is now here that I have gathered and measured yes,'
Gallery TPW

, ON. *2018: ''like a conjuring,'' Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts,

, MB *2017: ''Like a conjuring (bringing water back to Bradley)'', The Anchorage Bradley Museums,

Mississauga, ON Mississauga is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto (Etobicoke) to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, ...

. * 2016: ''; it was in the air, as they say'', Gallery 44, Toronto, ON. * 2015: ''The Work of Mourning'',

, Mississauga, ON. * 2013: ''Deaths/Memorials/Births'', Centre for Print and Media Arts, Hamilton, ON. * 2009: ''In The Bedroom Series'', Gallery 44,

, ON. * 2008: ''Deaths/Memorials/Births'', Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts,

Winnipeg, MB Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,607 and a metropolitan population of 834,678, maki ...

Reviews/essays/interviews

* Nicholls, Sophie. "Battling against in-school discrimination." 24 Hours, December 4, 2005, p. 6. * Whyte, Murray. " Random acts of weirdness."

The Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands division. The newspaper was establis ...

, March 26, 2005, Sec. H, p. 1 and 12.

References

External links

Official Website

; IT WAS IN THE AIR, AS THEY SAY at G44

IN THE BEDROOM at G44

Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts
*
Deaths/Memorials/Births
' {{DEFAULTSORT:DeFreitas, Erika 21st-century Canadian women artists Artists from Toronto University of Toronto alumni York University alumni Date of birth missing (living people) Living people 1980 births