THE GREEN SUITCASE
Bogdan Luca

March 1 - 25, 2023
Reception: Saturday, March 4, 2 - 5 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, March 25, 1 - 2 pm
The artist will be present on March 4th, 18th, and 25th during gallery hours.

The Red Head Gallery is pleased to showcase the first show The Green Suitcase by Bogdan Luca.

My mother and I immigrated to Canada in 1996 bringing along a suitcase full of photographs. I rediscovered this luggage decades later and found myself captivated by its contents. The photographs are a history of my family: many people whose futures I know. My interest was particularly piqued by my grandfather, a paternal figure who had a classified parallel life. He served the Romanian communist regime from the 50s to the 70s as a detector of spies.

The Green Suitcase is my way of articulating the mystery of my grandfather’s extraordinary life. You can sense his gaze in the notes and markings he made on some of the photographs. His life and actions were similarly scrutinized by another gaze: the state. The suitcase suggests to me a layering of witnessing, vigilance, and surveillance.

This show was generously funded by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

For a gallery layout and price list please click here.

Bogdan Luca is a Toronto based painter. He makes work about the relationship between visual culture, dreams, and reality. With an insistent interest in the human figure, the artist creates worlds where relationships that we take for granted are revisited: figure/ground, abstract/representational, depth/flatness. Bogdan is the recipient of Canada Council and Ontario Art Councill grants. He teaches drawing and painting at OCAD University, Sheridan College and the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Green Suitcase is his first exhibition with the Red Head Gallery