By Olex Wlasenko, Station Gallery Curator
Special to Slowcity.ca

In 2021, Toronto artist Kim-Lee Kho lost her beloved father during a pandemic. That meant Kho’s family could not visit and care for him as they longed to. The artist worried her father would die of loneliness before anything else.

How many more people experienced the grief he had, losing the company of loved ones? Losing actual, physical touch? So when Kim Lee Kho decided to make a show around grief (and love and loss and longing, and the ephemerality of all things), she knew that most people could identify with the subject matter not just in the ordinary human sense, but with that special edge that pandemic conditions have added to everything.

Using photography in many different forms, along with other media, this show looks at the faces of grief, the weight of it, some specific practices around mourning, and poetic ways of looking at loss.

The title Burnt Offerings alludes to the ancient ritual of burning things whether as offering or sacrifice, as purification or as prayer. You can expect to see images and elements of fire, charred surfaces and drawings produced by heat and flame, and photo-based sculpture that draws on the artist’s Chinese heritage, along with many other points of contemplation.

Sation Gallery is located at 1450 Henry St. Whitby. Burnt Offerings runs until Nov 25 2023