"Image Model Muse" Explores How Media Shapes Us

Her work questions the permanence of objects when popular culture renders the lifespan of images increasingly short. The obsessive materiality of her photographic images call attention to their constructedness, serving not only as a compelling formal device, but as a metaphor for how beauty and desire are also constructs in and of themselves.​"
​​​​​​Gabriel Ritter, Curator and Head of Contemporary Art, Mia 

Cwynar re-appropriates dated kitschy advertising, creating intricate tableaux, using vivid colored backdrops, found objects and images, to comment on our social and political environment and our evolving history. Her multilayered films deal with materialism, the mechanism of desire, changing perceptions of color, gender, and branding, consumerism, sexism, perception, truth and beauty. 

Based in Brooklyn, Cwynar (Vancouver, BC, Canada, 1985) has an MFA from Yale University; a Bachelor of Design from York University, Toronto, ON; and studied English Literature at the University of British Columbia. Cwynar has had solo exhibitions in New York, London, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, and Sweden and has work in the permanent collections of a number of museums.

Sara Cwynar: Image Model Muse runs through January 20, 2019.