Join us for a party to celebrate the opening of Shaun Fernandes: Getting The Most From Your Hammer in the RIC Student Gallery.

In Getting The Most From Your Hammer, Shaun Fernandes presents a series of staged photographs and videos that examine working-class stereotypes of masculinity. Growing up in a rural town, Fernandes saw the tools and materials of adult work as objects for boyhood play—building forts from scrap drywall and steel sheeting or shooting pellets at stacked tin cans. These images embrace humour in order to highlight the absurd and often ritualistic actions performed during the path to maturity.

ARTIST BIO

Shaun Fernandes is a Toronto-based artist holding a BFA in Photography Studies from Ryerson University. His practice combines performative photographs, sculpture, and object studies to form quasi-documentary, long-term projects dealing with identity and place.

ABOUT THE STUDENT GALLERY

The RIC's Student Gallery showcases the art and curatorial practices of Ryerson University’s current undergraduate and graduate students and recent alumni from all disciplines. Rigorous yet inclusive, the program engages audiences with important issues through group or solo exhibitions of contemporary art and historical lens-based media. Presenting six exhibitions per year, the Student Gallery provides valuable, professional experience in the curation and display of artwork. The exhibitions are selected annually, following a call for submissions, by a committee comprised of staff members from the RIC, along with students and faculty members from the School of Image Arts.

Image: Shaun Fernandes, Minnows, 2019, chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist