Jennifer Carvalho

Jennifer Carvalho’s paintings develop through a deliberate act of omission and focus, where delicate historical gestures quietly seep into contemporary awareness. Mining imagery from Antiquity and the Renaissance—drawn from textbooks and digital archives—her work operates like a form of visual archaeology, uncovering fragmented stories and moments lost to time. Her compositions are often unexpectedly cropped and compressed into shallow planes, creating dreamlike, uncanny images that feel both distant from their origins and strangely familiar. Her creative process involves layering and removing paint with meticulous care, reflecting on how images and memories fade, transform, or disappear altogether. The textured surfaces, built up over time with thin, translucent layers, evoke a slow, cinematic rhythm, inviting viewers into a meditative state. What begins as quiet stillness slowly reveals subtle shifts in color, shape, and texture, encouraging sustained attention. As the eye lingers, these paintings open into unfolding narratives where gaps are filled by the viewer’s imagination, allowing the work to breathe and evolve at its own gentle pace. ...

Franz Kaka was founded in 2016 as an artist-led gallery, presenting exhibitions that privileged experimentation and risk-taking. In 2019, the gallery began formally representing a number of the artists who had previously exhibited, including Lotus L. Kang, HaeAhn Paul Kwon Kajander, Anne Low, and Elif Saydam. In the years since, the gallery has expanded its international reach through gallery collaborations and art fair participations, including presentations at Art Basel, Frieze London, and the Armory Show. Known for presenting materially curious and conceptually complex exhibitions, the gallery champions nuanced practices that transform and deepen through sustained engagement, fostering dynamic conversations with audiences in Toronto and abroad. ...