This paintings were created at King West by award-winning Canadian artist and former member, Jen Mann, as she developed her Strange Beauties (2013) series that would eventually debut at Neubacher Shor Contemporary gallery in Toronto. Mann's work explores identity, self, and meaning through her colourful oil paintings.

From Neubacher Shor Contemporary:

Inspired by the circus, illusions, dreams and the innocence and playfulness of childhood, Strange Beauties explores beauty and its fringes. 

Capturing sincere moments between Mann and her subjects, the paintings in this exhibition evoke a naïve and unfiltered sense of beauty akin to that experienced in childhood. Using colour and saturation to foreground elegant and alluring elements in otherwise odd and unglamourous images, Mann captures the world through “rose-coloured glasses.” An intense stare, a blink, a sideways glance—and in some works, the collision of these gestures—create a deep sense of intimacy and honesty amidst the surreal images.

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