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Natia Lemay, Xavier Daniels

The Intuitionist

The Act of Being Seen

Natia Lemay’s (b. 1985, Toronto, ON) and Xavier Daniels’s (b. 1980) works scrutinize the ways in which emotional, cultural, and historical experiences shape the self, and probe intuition as a form of knowledge that operates beyond the confines of rationality. Lemay paints figures in domestic contexts: the tactile surfaces of her paintings show self-portraits and versions of her self from different periods of her childhood. They reflect Lemay’s experiences as a woman with Afro-Indigenous roots in Canada. Daniels’s works act as a counterweight to the widespread misrepresentations of masculinity and the silence covering Black men’s experiences of racism. His photorealistic portraits visualize a tenderness and vulnerability that have long been missing. The book The Intuitionist presents the two oeuvres side by side and gathers conversations with the artists as well as an essay by Charles Moore.