Plug In ICA is excited to announce the upcoming exhibition featuring new works from artist Laura Lewis, 'One eye filled with night', on display from October 23, 2026 to January 9, 2027!

Please join us in the galleries, Unit 1 - 460 Portage Avenue, on Friday, October 23 at 6PM for the opening reception. This event is free to all and our space is wheelchair accessible.

Inspired by Sarah Ahmed’s 'Queer Phenomenology', Lewis locates her interest in how domestic spaces, and objects shape queer identities. The compositions depict 2SLGBTQIA+ friends in their personal and familiar spaces layered with heady references to film noir, photography, and historical paintings. Often working at an experiential scale, these works solicit viewers to project themselves into the tableaux and join in the dramatic, intimate scenescapes. Lewis creates an affective vision of environment and objecthood, where she explores dualities like desire/disgust and bliss/anguish through various painterly strategies. Borrowing narrative devices from filmic traditions, non-figurative works or “object scenes,” as Lewis refers to them, are companion to the portraits, revelatory clues to understanding this environment and its constituents.

This exhibition was initiated by Allison Yearwood, with contributions from Gilles Hébert.

Laura Lewis is a queer visual artist from Halifax, Nova Scotia, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her practice explores representation and relationships through an affective, psychosexual lens. Lewis holds a BFA Honours degree from the University of Manitoba. She has exhibited across Canada and participated in various international artist residencies.