Instagram
Takeovers

Avery Steel (@averysteel) is a Toronto-based artist working in a hybrid region exploring the relationship between performance and photography. Avery began her artistic practice as a performer first, dancing, singing and acting on stage for years before the camera was introduced as a medium. In her process, the camera is used as a tool to document self-choreographed performance pieces in which the body and the surrounding physical environment is used to convey representations of a past-self. Considering themes of sexuality, gender, mental health, trauma, and control, Avery uses performance and surrealism to create imagined spaces in her practice with the intention of subverting notions of familiarity and thus introducing the presence of the uncanny. Through subverting expectations and the honest use of an autobiographical narrative as a conceptual framework, Avery’s work enables audiences to understand that while emanating from experience, the personal and the political are aligned.