Exhibitions
Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design
Ordinary Marvel
Susan Kealey
Curated by Joan Stebbins
Charles H. Scott Gallery is pleased to present Ordinary Marvel, an exhibition of work by Susan Kealey (1959-2000). Kealey’s artistic output was prodigious and this exhibition presents a selection of her diverse practice including her photographs of everyday objects, paintings and mixed media works that reflect her love of language and pop culture and selections from a series that explored illness and medical treatment.
Ordinary Marvel was organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and curated by Joan Stebbins, with the assistance of Jennifer Rudder, Director of the Art Gallery of Stratford.
BIOGRAPHIES
Susan Kealey was diagnosed with chronic leukemia at the age of sixteen and underwent a bone marrow transplant. In spite of her condition, she completed high school at seventeen, went on to earn a degree in philosophy from McGill University in Montréal and completed a second degree in French translation at the University of Ottawa. The treatment she received for the leukemia resulted in graft-versus-host disease causing loss of vision. Though legally blind, Kealey attended the Ontario College of Art, becoming the first blind student admitted to OCA in the department of Experimental Arts. When she graduated in 1989, Kealey was awarded the Governor General’s Academic Medal for the highest standing in school.
Susan Kealey vigorously embraced everything the art scene had to offer and injected her remarkable energy into that milieu in Toronto. She curated, wrote, edited, organized, contributed to, hosted, served on boards and committees, and worked at Gallery 44, Parallellogramme, FUSE Magazine, VYZ Artist’s Outlet, Free Parking, CKUA Radio, Images Festival of independent Film and Video, Mix and Lola. Kealey’s interests and scope were as hungrily global as they were local. She sought out and participated in artist residencies first at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, and then at the Rijkskademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her work was exhibited throughout Europe and North America.
Susan Kealey died of cancer at the age of forty in 2000.