Prairie Star Deck II
Exhibition Run: May 2 – June 26th, 2025
Opening Reception: May 2nd | 7 – 9pm
Artist Talk: June 26th | time TBD
The Manitoba Craft Council is excited to present, Prairie Star Deck II, an exhibition by artist AJA Louden.
As the clever title of this exhibition suggests, Prairie Star Deck II takes viewers on a journey through time, space, and alternate realities. Images pixellate, colour and grayscale bands shimmer in reciprocating motion – a fluid world, simultaneously analog and digital, presents itself as a portal. Colourful yarn punctures the fabric, moving back and forth between warp and weft, laying down wormholes.
Working in mediums both new and old, inspired by historical paintings and science fiction, Louden is equal parts artist, inventor, and archaeologist of the future. Like cards in a tarot deck, his work offers viewers an opportunity for self-reflection and a launchpad from which to explore the past-present-future time continuum. In contrast to the bleak dystopian imaginings that have become so ubiquitous across a range of artforms, Louden’s work brings to life a hopeful vision of an earth and its people in active restoration.
AJA Louden is a Jamaican-Canadian artist living and working out of amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). Through rigorous mark making, constructions and installations, Louden builds stories and worlds that are firmly rooted in both galleries and public spaces, infused by his experience of growing up Black in the prairies. His current work focuses on the cyclical nature of power, inspired by science-fiction and historical paintings. Louden’s recent use of textiles considers the roles of craft in Black communities, and the history of craft in rural Alberta in particular.
This project was made possible through the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and Winnipeg Arts Council.
