Kareem-Anthony Ferreira’s practice explores patterns of personal, familial, and social identity within portraiture through intimate scenes deeply connected to the artist’s own memories and developed through a combination of painting and collage. Compositing family photographs and memorable familial experiences, Ferreira, a first-generation Canadian with Trinidadian heritage, builds richly textured compositions from an assemblage of textiles, paper, and paint applied to unstretched canvases. Repetitive flora and fauna motifs, sourced from non-indigenous commercial textiles, are a notable presence throughout Ferreira’s works and demonstrate the oversimplified perceptions his disparate cultural backgrounds hold in regard to one another. These mass-produced idealistic patterns, commonly associated with escapism and entertainment, often take on a cliché or sardonic tone in contrast with the emotional sincerity of Ferreira’s figures.
Kareem-Anthony Ferreira (b. 1989 in Hamilton, Ontario; lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario) completed his BFA at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in 2012 and his MFA at the University of Arizona in 2020. Ferreira recently had a solo exhibition at Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles and has exhibited works at Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York; Alice Yard Gallery, Trinidad and Tobago; the Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona; DeFacto Gallery, Ontario; and the Workers Art & Heritage Museum, Ontario.