Written on the Body 
by guest artist Michèle White, curated by Zishuo Li 

December 10 - 20, 2025

Opening Reception December 13, 2-5 pm
Closing Reception December 20th, 2-5 pm

In Written on the Body, Michèle White expresses the human body as an unfolding terrain, wounded, marked, and gesturing. Across two distinct approaches, White invites us to consider the body as both vessel and voice, a landscape inscribed by love, time, disturbance, and resistance.

In the Written on the Body series, the body emerges from layered earth-toned wax that recalls both land and skin, cuts and scars. Ruptures, lumps, and veins evoke not only bodily tension but also the raw intensity of love, care, and grieving. These works suggest a body in flux, giving and aging, a site where intimacy and loss are equally etched.

In the Editorials series, White isolates limbs in expressive, often ambiguous gestures, moments where the body becomes both message and messenger. These fragments suggest not only emotional resonance but also political intent, the body as a site of resistance, assertion, and public address. Through posture and gesture, White shows how the body inscribes itself into social and political discourse, performing its own form of language.

The body is never neutral. It is always marked by feeling, by time, by power, and by the need to speak. 

Wax, mineral pigments, glass pieces, lava stones, ashes, and other materials are used to create these works, drawing on both their physical properties and metaphorical meanings. White's balance between abstraction and representation resists didacticism, inviting the viewer to encounter the work rather than decode it. The paintings do not illustrate bodies, they inhabit them.

By blurring the line between personal and political, inner wound and outward gesture, Written on the Body becomes both an intimate statement and a collective story, for now, for today.

Zishuo Li, Curator 

Michèle White Bio
http://michelewhite.squarespace.com

Michèle White’s work explores – often through sources in literature – manifestations of the unconscious or the invisible in the visible world. Deeply attached to physical practices in art and hand production, the history and meaning of materials and processes are central to the artist’s visual practice, research, and teaching.

Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1953, she holds the BA from the University of Toronto graduating summa cum laude as Faculty Scholar and Trinity College Award winner. She received the AOCA, Graduate Teaching Assistantship and Forsyth Scholarship upon graduation from the Ontario College of Art.

A Professor of Drawing & Painting in the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design University, in 2022 Michèle retired after 40 years of teaching as Professor Emerita. In 2005 Professor White received the Price Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has administrated at the program, faculty and senior management levels and led the Florence Off-Campus Program a number of times.

Michèle has participated in solo, group and collective exhibitions since 1975 in public and private galleries throughout the province. She has received Toronto, Ontario and Canada Council Grants; Materials Assistance, Explorations, Artists and the Workplace, Travel and Professional Development Grants; the RBC Painting Prize and two Elizabeth T. Greenshields Scholarships to study in Europe.

While based in Toronto, Michèle’s studio and teaching practices include periods in Italy, England and Ireland. She has served on the board of artists service organizations, written for arts publication and curated exhibitions.

Zishuo Li Bio
http://zishuoli.com

Zishuo Li is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Media & Design Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Holding an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design and a BFA in Drawing & Painting from OCAD University, as well as a BEng in Electrical & Computer Engineering from McMaster University, Zishuo’s art practice is deeply informed by their diverse educational background. Their research interests revolve around natural materials and material philosophy, seeking to use natural materials to bring their ecological consciousness into various art forms, including paintings, installations, sonic art and time-based media. 

Born in China, Zishuo’s practice is influenced by Daoism and traditional Chinese philosophy. Their recent works examine the intricate relationship between humanity and nature, investigating how the vitality and agency of matter can open ecological, political, and philosophical possibilities for more relational and sustainable ways of living with the world.