Kissing the Bouquet
Flower: each numbered in serial order
Each 23" x 36" unframed
Single edition archival photograph on cotton rag paper, found threads, spray mounted on acrylic and framed.
Kissing the Bouquet is a project opening at Neighbourhood Gallery in Toronto November 19, 2025, through to January 18, 2026. Curated by Lauren McKinley-Renzetti, I appreciate how Lauren is an artist, educator, and my museum colleague for over twelve years. Over the summer, 2025, I interviewed 23 museum colleagues who are also practicing artists, and they sometimes talked about a transformational museum experience as a spiritual experience. Thank you, Lauren, for giving me a chance to feel how it feels to have my work in a gathering place where people think together about these things. Here below is my statement and bio for the show.
STATEMENT
While on an artist-residency in Puebla, Mexico this spring, I was drawn to the flowers in the studio’s garden. I photographed a Flor de Majo up close, printed it, and by intervening the image with found threads, I had produced my first in a series of works that I call Kissing the Bouquet. I have since photographed hundreds of flowers on my neighbourhood walks, slipping into my neighbours’ gardens enjoying their potency; lush petals and colours. Each work is called Flower, distinguished by their number on a list that keeps count of the expanding bouquet. The title comes from a passage I read in Elvia Wilk’s book, Death By Landscape (2022), where she talks about Medieval mystical manuscripts. She writes, “Christ’s side wound is sometimes depicted as a separate body part, a (very vaginal) opening into the page, for readers to peer into or imagine entering… for the devout to fondle and kiss.”
BIO
Paola Poletto is a multidisciplinary artist-curator born in Italy and based in Toronto on land that is Michi Sagging Nishnawbe territory. Her work is rooted in social practice and site-specificity, experiential design, and a methodology grounded in feminist and queer relationality. Paola’s professional career spans pivotal positions of diplomacy and leadership in municipal as well as foreign affairs offices, and senior management positions at the Design Exchange and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She maintains a photography and writing practice, and continues to build an extensive portfolio of exhibitions and curated projects. Paola’s doctoral practice-based research at Toronto Metropolitan University in the Media and Design Innovation Program expands upon the current scholarship on transformational museum experiences by including more artist perspectives in the mix. Her work has been published in several magazines, peer-reviewed journals and books, and her artwork has been presented locally, nationally and internationally.
paolapoletto.com
museumglitcher.ca
@p_poletto
paolapoletto@gmail.com
I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario. Thank you to Station Gallery for recommending my project for exhibition assistance.
