Surrey, BC – Surrey Art Gallery is thrilled to kick off their 50th anniversary with the touring exhibition Rajni Perera: Futures at Surrey Art Gallery from January 25 to March 16, 2025. Admission is free.
Experimenting with mediums as varied as painting, sculpture, and photography, Toronto-based artist Rajni Perera expresses her vision of imagined futures in which mutated subjects adapt to exist in dystopian realms through strength and resilience. Perera draws deeply on the artistic traditions of Sri Lanka, her childhood home. Indian miniature painting, medieval armour, South Asian textiles, and science fiction also factor into her body of work that spans feminist and diasporic narratives while contemplating survival in an environmentally degraded future.
Her work responds to existential threats with creativity and invention, offering a vision charged with humour, critique, hope, and dread. Looking to the past and to the future, and endowed with a powerful imagination, Perera is singularly equipped to express the increasingly chaotic, often frightening, and sometimes hopeful world in which we find ourselves today.
Futures includes nearly thirty works from various stages of the artist’s career. Through the manifestation of various mediums from functional sculptures to intricate paintings, Perera looks ahead to uncertain times threatened by climate change and looming social inequities. Her future goddesses and inventive armours prevail over dystopic realms, mutating to adapt to challenging environments.
This exhibition is organized and circulated by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. It is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue featuring an interview with the artist by curator Sarah Milroy, as well as essays by leading international literary figures Fariha Róisín and Britt Wray. Surrey Art Gallery is the only West Coast stop on the tour.
The winter opening and art party on Saturday, January 25 will also celebrate Cheryl Pagurek: Winter Garden—an interactive digital collage developed out of a still life photography series.; Pass the Mic!—a range of artworks curated by the Semiahmoo Arts Society; and Nicolas Sassoon: Liquid Landscapes—a Surrey-inspired series of animations returning on the new UrbanScreen venue at Surrey Civic Plaza. The evening includes artmaking with Claire Cilliers and Gallery art educators, poetry with Heidi Greco, a conversation between guest curator Sarah Milroy and Gallery Curatorial Assistant Zoe Yang, sound installation with Ruby Singh, and much more!
Also in connection to Rajni Perera: Futures is a tour and conversation between the artist and Negarra A. Kudumu on Saturday, March 1 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
About the Artist
Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives and works in Toronto. She explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestorship, migrant and marginalized identities/cultures, monsters, and dream worlds. These themes come together to fuel explorations within a multimedia practice that includes drawing and painting, clay, wood, lanterns, new media sculpture, textile, and most recently, synthetic taxidermy. Perera seeks to open and reveal the dynamism of the icons, beings, and objects she creates by means of a subversive aesthetic that counteracts antiquated, oppressive discourse and acts as a restorative force. Her work is in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, the Sobey Foundation, and the Musée De Beaux Arts De Montréal.
About the Curator
Sarah Milroy is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinberg, Ontario, Canada’s only museum devoted exclusively to Canadian and Indigenous art. Previously, Milroy served as editor/publisher of Canadian Art magazine and as lead art critic of the Globe and Mail. Recent projects at the McMichael include Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment (2021); Generations: The Sobey Family and Canadian Art (2022); and River of Dreams: Impressionism on the St. Lawrence (2024, co-curated with Anne-Marie Bouchard). In 2020, Milroy was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
About Surrey Art Gallery
Founded in 1975, Surrey Art Gallery presents contemporary art by local, national, and international artists, including digital and audio art. Recognized for its award-winning programs, the Gallery engages children through to adults in ongoing conversations that affect our lives and provides opportunities to interact with artists and the artistic process. The Gallery is located at 13750 88 Avenue in Surrey on the unceded territories of the Salish Peoples, including the and Semiahma (Semiahmoo) nations. Surrey Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges operating funding from the City of Surrey, Province of BC through BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Surrey Art Gallery Association.
