Two Truths and a Lie
18 September – 14 May 2022

Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens & at Centennial Square

“Two Truths and a Lie" is an icebreaker game that involves stating three possible propositions about oneself: two that are true and one that is false. Through deception, deduction, and disclosure, the players become better acquainted with one another.

The works included in Two Truths and a Lie speak to the complex interactions within the pursuit of truth—personal, visual, or social. Exploring these processes as ways of knowing, the exhibition highlights the different ways in which narratives come into being. The exhibition builds on the conceit of the game, featuring artists who are concerned with self-presentation, narratology, and language.

Through diverse techniques and mediums, these artists participate in the confessional as much as they slip into the hidden and fictional. Within these layers of thought, the artists also probe at assumptions and broaden the limits of understanding, guiding us towards more expansive ways of seeing and being in relation.

Two Truths and a Lie is drawn primarily from the permanent collection of Oakville Galleries.

Participating artists

Stephen Andrews, Valérie Blass, Colin Campbell, Stan Denniston, General Idea, Spring Hurlbut, Donna James, Micah Lexier, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Liz Magor, Olia Mishchenko, Louise Noguchi, Sojourner Truth Parsons, David Rokeby, Lisa Steele, Derek Sullivan, Erdem Taşdelen, and Jin-me Yoon.

Opening Hours

in Gairloch Gardens

Tuesday to Saturday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM

at Centennial Square

Tuesday to Saturday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM

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Expanding on the themes in Two Truths and a Lie, poet and translator Fan Wu hosts a free, one-day creative writing workshop rethinking deceit beyond its traditional contexts of betrayal and bad intention.

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As a counterpart to our Artist Talk with Jin-me Yoon and Donna James from last fall, Oakville Galleries is pleased to present an Artist Talk with Stan Denniston and Erdem Taşdelen. In this online talk, Denniston and Taşdelen will speak to their works in Two Truths and a Lie and discuss the ways in which photography as a medium can interrogate implicit power structures built into the ways in which narratives are read and interpreted. Together, the artists ask viewers to negotiate photography's privileged status as a record of memory and veracity.

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