Aldeneil Española 

TUTUBÒ

Monday, April 7 - Friday, April 11, 2025

Gordon Snelgrove Gallery

Reception: Friday, April 11 at 6:00pm - 9:30pm

Performance and Artist Talk: Friday, April 11 at 6:30pm-7:30pm

TUTUBÒ (to grow) is a contemplation on the contemporary human experience in a digital-driven world—a reminder to return to the physical. In a time when memories are uploaded as intangible data and leisure is increasingly spent in digital spaces, the garden whispers: come back. Our lived experiences leave traces in the material world: the dirt ground into a shirt’s sleeve, water spilled and dried on a countertop, the slow unfurling of a seedling’s first leaves.

I am the garden. I yearn for stillness. I crave to tend, to linger, to stain my hands with soil. These marks — paint on fabric, arranged flowers browned on the vase, spilled ink on paper— are proof that I was here, that I was real.

About the Artist

Aldeneil Española Jr. is an interdisciplinary visual and media artist specializing in materials, painting and drawing. With a background in visual arts and media production, He explores the intersections of identity, community, memory and the diaspora through materiality, performance, and design. Aldeneil’s goal is to engage the audiences and spark meaningful dialogue about the shared lived experience of humanity.

Özen Turkekul Wersch

Uncertainty

Monday, April 7 - Friday, April 11, 2025

Gordon Snelgrove Gallery

Reception: Thursday, April 10 at 6:30 - 9:30pm 

Özen Turkekul Wersch’s practice reflects the unpredictable nature of human beings and life itself. She investigates change, impermanence, conflict, self-doubt, knowing, and unlearning —tensions that shape both individual experiences and broader human patterns. Each piece emerges as an open-ended inquiry, creating room for vulnerability, reflection, and ambiguity.

Her perspective as a woman, mother, immigrant, geoscientist, and Turkish-Canadian informs the emotional and conceptual framework of her work. These layered identities contribute to a visual language that resists fixed narratives and invites personal interpretation. 

Working with oil and water-based media on canvas, paper, and wood panels, she emphasizes immediacy and presence. Pieces are often completed in a single session, shaped by the energy of the moment and a fluid, inquisitive process. Making becomes an environment for internal examination, where questions surface, beliefs are tested, and what once felt certain is reconsidered.

Uncertainty presents a new series grounded in this approach. The exhibition invites viewers to sit with unresolved states and consider the delicate balance between holding on and letting be. Interactive elements encourage quiet contemplation and individual connection.

Rather than offering conclusions, the work remains receptive to doubt and complexity, bringing into focus what often remains unspoken.

About the Artist

Born in İzmir, Turkey, Özen Turkekul Wersch discovered a love for painting and drawing early in life. While her creative interests remained constant, she first pursued a scientific path, earning a BSc in Geological Engineering and an MSc in Economic Geology. She worked as a geoscientist for over 20 years in Turkey and Canada, where her understanding of transformation and deep natural processes began to influence her visual thinking. 

In 2009, she began formal art education at the Toronto School of Art and OCAD University. Now completing her BFA at the University of Saskatchewan, Özen creates abstract work that explores impermanence, conflict, self-doubt, and unlearning. Using oil and water-based media on canvas, paper, and wood, she works intuitively—often completing pieces in a single session to preserve immediacy.

Shaped by her experiences as a scientist, woman, mother, immigrant, and Turkish-Canadian, Özen’s work invites space for complexity, openness, and quiet emotional presence.