“Perennial” Exhibition by M.E. Sparks NOVEMBER 2025

 

 

Perennial presents a series of video works alongside sculptural paintings. Using methods of collage to dismantle and recombine found source material, the work lingers in an unsettled space between surface and image, stasis and transformation. Here, the moving image may seem too still, while the painted surface is not still enough. Each appears uncertain of its own state of being, without a clear beginning or end.

 

In this exhibition, M.E. Sparks disassembles fragments of art historical imagery, searching for the moment a form slips from its origin and resists classification. Recurring feminine-coded motifs — hands, dresses, curtains, the floral still life — reappear in shifting combinations, as echoes refusing to settle into a singular composition. Through this work, Sparks searches for provisionality and levity within painting — asking how the painted image, through its cycles of growth and decay, might remain unfixed and rest lightly.

 

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M.E. Sparks (she/her) is an artist and educator based in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory. Her recent work explores the material possibilities of paint and fabric to question painting’s limiting dichotomies and conventions. By introducing softness and malleability to the painted image, Sparks searches for uncertain and unsettled spaces of representation, as well as the reconciliation and transformation of historical narrative. Sparks received her MFA from Emily Carr University and BFA from NSCAD University, and is the recipient of research project grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, and BC Arts Council. She has participated in residencies in Canada, Germany, Finland, and the USA — most recently at the Vermont Studio Center and NARS Foundation

International Residency.

 

Perennial at aceartinc. is made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and Manitoba Arts Council.

Image taken by Sarah Fuller 

About aceartinc.: We are an artist-run centre dedicated to the support, exhibition, and dissemination of contemporary art. aceartinc. Presents five major exhibitions a year by contemporary visual artists. www.aceart.org

 

We are on Treaty 1 Territory. On the original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. We offer our respect and gratitude to the caretakers of this land.