Cauda Equina, 24 Reflections in Miniature(Horse-tail hair needlepoint) You know all those first-date horror stories where the girl thinks the guy is totally perfect until she opens his closet and finds a bag full of hair? Well, it’s very possible Toronto-based artist Keith W. Bentley could be the ground zero. Although I hope he never kept the horse-tail hair he collected from slaughterhouses in a garbage bag in a closet, Bentley has transformed the unsettling piles of hair into thread for miniature needlepoint portraits of horses. This hair-raising show opens today at Gallery Deluxe Gallery from 7-10pm. The effect of the hair gives the portraits a life-like feel, and looking like bleak photographs of lonesome equine standing firm against a harsh Sable Island wind. (Gallery Deluxe Gallery, 6015 Willow, open daily by appointment and Sundays from 12-6pm. 425-0600. To Fri June 29)
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2007.
Last year while working at MSVU I found a number of these distributed around campus. This particular issue was blatantly anti-Muslim, and since we have a lot of students at the Mount from the Middle East I gathered up as many as I could find and turned them in to security. Don’t presume that anyone who takes them seriously is an idiot. When you’re new to a culture it’s sometimes hard to get your bearings on what’s acceptable and what’s not.