Damien & The Love Guru

Disler’s practice is centered around painting and is informed by many of Modernism’s preoccupations: the possibilities of abstraction and issues surrounding authorship and signature. She engages with these concerns through the use of visual and processual tropes associated with feminism and psychoanalysis while employing painting as a tool for a direct physical processing of subjective experience. Her gestural paintings and steel sculptures take a nuanced approach to expression, alchemizing visual material gleaned from cultural memory and personal history into motifs and archetypal symbols that populate her work. From 2010-2021 she also worked collaboratively with Nicole Ondre as Feminist Land Art Retreat.

Education

• De Ateliers, 2015, Amsterdam, NL
• BA Fine Art, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, 2011, Vancouver, CA

Upcoming

• Hotel Warszawa Art Fair, 8–10 Sep 2023

Solo & duo exhibitions

• Light Sleeper, Damien & The Love Guru, 2022, Zurich, CH
• Art Brussels, invited by Damien & The Love Guru, 2022, Brussels, BE
• Big Naturals, Damien & The Love Guru, 2021, Brussels, BE
• Free Rein, Kamloops Art Gallery, 2020, Kamloops, CA ¹
• Free Rein, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2019, Oshawa, CA
• Free Rein, Audain Gallery, 2018, Vancouver, CA ¹
• Shadow Work, WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art, 2018, Brussels, BE
• Unfinished Business, Franz Kaka, 2017, Toronto, CA
• No Man’s Land, ACUD, 2017, Berlin, DE ¹
• Heavy Flow – The Re-Release, Ginervera Gambino, 2017, Cologne, DE ¹
• Last Resort, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2016, Bregenz, AT ¹
• Duty Free, Studio for Propositional Cinema, 2015, Dusseldorf, DE ¹
• Absent-minded Window Gazing, The Commons, 2012, Vancouver, CA

Selected group exhibitions

• Matchmaker, hosted by Damien & The Love Guru for Various Others, Loggia, 2021, Munich, DE
• Fly, Robin, Fly, Mécènes du Sud Montpellier-Sète, 2021, Montpellier, FR
• Casa Uovo, Sangt Hipolyt, 2021, Berlin, DE
• Heavy Metal Parking Lot, Garage, 2020, Rotterdam, NL
• The Mushroom at the End of The World, U’s, 2020, Diamond Valley, US
• Global Cows, hosted by Conceptual Fine Arts and Damien & the Love Guru, 2020, online
• Global Cows, Damien & the Love Guru, 2019, Brussels, BE
• Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender and Resistance, ACT III, Arnoflini, 2019, Bristol, UK
• Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender and Resistance, ACT II, De La Warr Pavillion, 2019, Bexhil on the Sea, UK
• Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender and Resistance, ACT I, Nottingham Contemporary, 2018, Nottingham, UK
• Inscape at Sunrise, Kantine, 2018, Brussels, BE
• If I Was Your Girlfriend, Belmacz, 2018, London, UK
• School of Chairs, 500 Capp Street Foundation, 2018, San Francisco, US
• The Yellow Wallpaper, Ginerva Gambino, 2017, Cologne, DE
• Johnny Suede, Damien & the Love Guru, 2017, Brussels, BE
• EUtopia 28, Museum Cultuur Strombeek Gent, 2017, Strobeek, BE
• Looks, Campbell River Art Gallery, 2017, Campbell River, CA ¹
• Scattered Disk, Futura, 2017, Prague, CZ ¹
• Vordemberge-gildewart Stipendium, Kestner Gesellschaft, 2017, Hannover, DE ¹
• Paysage Exotique, Soloway Gallery, 2016, Brooklyn, US
• Neo-Pagan Witch Bitch, Evelyn Yard Gallery, 2016, London, UK
• High Water, Chapel St, 2016, Cornwall, UK
• On The Cliffs of the River Rhine, OSLO 10, 2016, Basel, CH ¹
• Look For Us In The Soundwaves We Will Always Be There, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2016, Brengenz, AT ¹
• Dead Letters Office, JTT Gallery, 2016, New York, US ¹
• ON FLOW IN THE CITY: Current artistic positions on the relationship between art, urbanism and the public, Museum Abteiberg, 2016, Abteiberg, DE ¹
• Equinox, The Willows, 2016, Brooklyn, US
• Ein Schelm, Wer Böses Dabei Denkt, Künstlerhaus Bremen, 2016, Bremen, DE ¹
• Making Sense, Galerie Juliètte Jongma, 2015, Amsterdam, NL
• We Are A Parasite On the Institution Of Cinema, An Institution Of Parasites, MUMOK, 2015, Vienna, AT ¹
• RULE C: Look For Us In The Inkwells We Will Always Be There, Archive Kabinett, 2015, Berlin, DE ¹
• Function Creep, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, 2015, NL
• I Multiplied Myself to Feel Myself, Kunstraum Niederösterreich, 2014, Vienna, AT ¹
• Another Space/Another Place/Together, Quadriennale, 2014, Düsseldorf, DE ¹
• De Ateliers, 2013, Amsterdam, NL
• Crystal Tongue, Exercise Projects, 2013, Vancouver, CA
• Pleinairism, Walter Philips Gallery at BANFF Centre, 2013, Alberta, CA
• HOME, The Willows, 2012, Brooklyn, US
• Young and Modern, VSA Gallery, 2012, Vancouver, CA ¹

Performances

• Garage Band, with In(En)Acting Roles, SB The Pool, 2019, Brussels, BE
• FLAR AIR, Contemporary Art Gallery and City of Vancouver, 2018, Vancouver, CA
• Vapours, with Emily Hill and Nicole Ondre, Campbell River Art Gallery, 2017, Campbell River, CA
• Reclining Figure with Charlott Weise, within the exhibition ‘Johnny Suede’, Damien & the Love Guru, 2017, Brussels, BE
• A Feminist Land Art Retreat Slideshow, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2016, Bregenz, AT ¹
• Two Too Serious Ladies, Kunstverein Munich, 2016, Munich, DE ¹
• Throw Your Voice, Max Meyer Gallery, 2015, Dusseldorf, DE ¹
• Case Studies, with Tiziana La Melia, Exercise Projects, 2013, Vancouver, CA

Residencies

• Western Front Media Residency, Western Front, 2018, Vancouver, CA
• CAG Field House Residence, Contemporary Art Gallery, 2017, Vancouver, CA
• WIELS Centre for Contemporary Arts, 2016, Brussels, BE
• A Paper, A Drawing, A Mountain, BANFF Centre, 2012, Alberta, CA

Related activities

• EPOCH, Global Cows, SITE in.oscillation, Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Do It Project and Sophie Bates on ilyd, podcast, Artists and Friends, 2020, online

• Book of the Living, artist book, edition of 10 + 2 AP, signed, published by Damien & The Love Guru, Brussels, 2022

Published work

• Texte Zur Kunst, 2018, Berlin, DE
• Case Studies, with Tiziana LaMelia, Tripwire 12: Aka Vancouver: Writing From The Unceded Coast Salish Territorie, edited by David Buuck, 2016, Vancouver, CA
• We Are A Parasite On the Institution Of Cinema, An Institution Of Parasites, published by Art Projects Era, 2015, Rotterdam, NL
• Function Creep, published by De Ateliers, 2015, Amsterdam, NL
• General Fine Arts vol.1 #4, published by Version House, 2015, London, UK
• Studio for Propositional Cinema, published by Art Projects Era, 2014, Rotterdam, NL
• The Child Alberta, published by BANFF Centre, 2013, Alberta, CA
• The Child Alberta, published by Publication Studios, 2013, Vancouver, CA
• Woo #6, published by Emily Carr Press, 2012, Vancouver, CA

• Why Do Art Collectives End?, Frieze, 2023
• Light Sleeper, Mousse Magazine, 2022
• Matchmaker, Art Viewer, 2021
• ‘Fly, Robin, Fly - Mécènes du Sud Montpellier-Sète’, En Revenant de L’expo, 2021
• ‘De Auto als Lustobject’, Sanneke Huisman, Metropolis M, 2020
• ‘In de Bijrijerstoel Door de Tijd Reizen’, Esmée Dros, Mister Motley, 2020
• ‘Click that! Five Really Good Online Exhibitions’, Anna Meinecke, GalleryTalk, 2020
• ‘Global Cows 2020’, Special Feature, Art Viewer, 2020
• The Mushroom at the End of The World, Contemporary Art Daily, 2020
• ‘We Wanted to Rethink the form of what an online exhibition could be’, Chloe Stead, Sleek Magazine, 2020
• Free Rein, Canadian Art, 2020
• ‘Brussels Roundup’, Chloe Stead, Art Agenda, 2019
• Global Cows, Art Viewer, 2019
• ‘Free Rein’, Stephanie Ling, Flash Art, 2018
• ‘The Tonal Ambivalence of Feminist Land Art Retreat’, Alison Hugill, Momus, 2017
• Jonny Suede, Art Viewer, 2017
• ‘Duty Free: Feminist Land Art Retreat’, Tiziana La Melia, C Magazine, 2015
• ‘Curating The Crustal Tongue’, Amy Kazmerchyk, Journal for the Institute of Humanities, 2014
• ‘Crystal Tongue Defies Analysis in Vancouver’, Michael Turner, Canadian Art, 2013