Dexter Barker-Glenn

From April 9 to May 17, 2025

“Each thing is itself in not being itself, and is not itself in being itself “
— Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness.

Groundless Ground follows from Dexter Barker-Glenn’s gentle treatment of objects in life, as bodies who are affected as much as they are effective. This new work underlines the reciprocal nature of our relationship to everyday possessions—where the simple ritual of ordinary interaction creates mutual respect with one's surroundings. We know well that our sentimental possessions are not sovereign—their boundaries are not fixed in space. These things of our life extend outwards and entwine in a net of interconnected bodies where each creates a center, illuminated via the same connecting force by which you and I are. These objects are defined solely through their relations with one another, not by some fixed meaning or permanent ground.

We often treat objects as props: pushing and smacking them into place, cramming too much into too little space, and consuming them as commodities. Yet, by paying attention to the things in life, responding to them, maintaining them, approaching them with intention, we can discover an elegant point of cooperation. Here, we see the object inherit time, labour, provenance, people—the resonant experiences of before and after this moment.

Consider the workmate bench depicted in By Heart (1), passed down to the artist from his grandfather, its marred surface bearing the evidence of its use. In careful hands, an object becomes a collaborator. In the seamless flow of work you feel continuous with its form, and with those who handled it before you. When it broke it was repaired. When it breaks you will repair it again.

Through a process of cutting and reassembling the painted image, Dexter echoes the daily interaction and use of the depicted object. His art-objects enact the continuous re-creation of their physical-object counterparts, paying tribute to their enduring mutability.

- Written by Avery Suzuki

Dexter Barker-Glenn (b. 1999, Toronto, Canada) is a multidisciplinary artist based in the unceded territory of Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and Tkaronto (Toronto). Taking cues from nature and biotic processes he is interested in the life cycle of materials, images and symbols. His paintings, sculptures and installations carry signs of decomposition, mutation and reuse. Recent exhibitions include Soul Manifest at Espace Maurice, Montreal (2024), Whale Fall at Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto (2024), Wolves at Hawkins, Atlanta (2023), Abundance, Sludge, or the Accrual of Material at Hunt Gallery, Toronto (2023), Parallel Universe at Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal (2022). He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in Computer Science from Concordia University (2022).