Second Nature advances Ethan Platt’s exploration of contemporary figuration through a new series of work that confronts notions of the ‘natural’ within urban and digital contexts. These paintings reference floral systems through colour, composition and mood to compose the synthetic figure in a flux state. In this state, digital aesthetics echo botanical life, and the artificial is framed by the natural. Through this dialogue, Second Nature asks what is fabricated, what is organic and what becomes our second nature.

Drawing on personal experiences, Platt’s paintings create mementos, vessels, and love letters to the natural world, relationships, and the rhythms of contemporary life. These encounters are conveyed through referencing iconic paintings such as Le Déjeuner Sur L'herbe (Édouard Manet, 1862–63), sculptures such as Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1647–52), artistic tropes such as ‘Musca Depicta’, floriography, and contemporary interpretations of the vanitas genre. This highlights a narrative based in ‘natural order’, spirituality, and mortality, to contemplate contemporary human experiences.

In Faded Reverie, Maggz Elizabeth captures the intersection of spectacle and vulnerability in Toronto’s music scene. Through light and shadow, her photographs evoke the atmosphere of a concert, immersing viewers in the moment when an artist steps on stage and the entire room shifts, alive with anticipation and connection.

The images offer a visceral connection to the fragile impermanence of identity and the fleeting power of performance, inviting the audience to reflect on the shared intensity of these experiences and the human essence that underpins them.

Four Rooms was a month-long installation by the Toronto-based elsewhere collective, presented as the inaugural exhibition of Atelier 1888, Gallery 1888’s artist residency program.

Staged in four evolving chapters—Bed, Bath, Sofa, and Table—the project unfolded weekly, transforming the skylight gallery into a living, shifting architecture of memory. At its centre stood an 8 x 8-foot mirrored cube: a cinematic device and spatial anchor that reflected, obscured, and reconfigured each room’s surrounding environment.

Merging expanded cinema, architectural intervention, and autonomous light and sound performances, Four Rooms explored the porous boundaries between body, space, and narrative. The installation invited visitors to step into a surreal reimagining of the domestic interior, where emotion, memory, and perception blurred.

Throughout its run, the exhibition drew wide interest from Toronto’s art, design, and performance communities. It was featured in media outlets including CP24, Cityline, and NOW Toronto, and welcomed hundreds of visitors during its opening weekend and ongoing weekly rotations.

Collective members: Katrina Jurjans, Nellie Jalalzadeh, Mehdi Latifian
Special thanks to: Cassra (sound design)

Katrina Jurjans’ work immerses viewers in a world where realities shift, overlap and transform. Graduating from Concordia University in 2014 with a BFA in Studio Art and Art History, Jurjans has continually explored the complex terrain between the tangible and ephemeral.

In her final years of studies, she became captivated by spatial theory, particularly focusing on spaces of transition and their capacity for transformation. This fascination with memory, emotionality and boundaries – spatial, temporal and bodily – has since become the conceptual backbone of her practice.

Jurjans’ paintings are a manifestation of these ideas, expressed through intricate patterns, vibrant colour and dynamic spatial tension. Much like the phases of the moon – one celestial body in a constant state of becoming – Jurjans’ works reflect the idea that change is not an end but a continual, cyclical process.

Each piece invites viewers to enter a dreamlike world to engage with the fluidity of perception and experience. Through fragmented compositions where figures and spaces fluctuate between foreground and background, past and present, memory and dream, Jurjans presents a world in a constant state of reshaping and transforming.