BUFFALO, NY.- The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art announced Jenine Marsh: Microcosm, the second exhibition in the series I WANT TO BELIEVE. This exhibition of new sculptural works by Toronto-based artist Jenine Marsh opens on Friday, January 24, from 7–10 PM, followed by an artist-led walkthrough on Saturday, January 25 at 12pm. Both events are free and open to the public.
In Microcosm, Jenine Marsh constructs a precarious island where history, value, and utopian longing converge. The exhibition takes its title from an 1808 artist’s manual, Microcosm, which was designed for house-bound bourgeois women to help them imagine and depict the daily lives and labor of the working class. From the protective utopia of the country estate or city mansion, these hobby artists drew and painted images of another utopia: a quasi-real world of fresh air, open spaces, and a purposeful life of work. The image has all the contradictions of imagined utopias: their impossible distance and immanent closeness; an inclusionary heaven constructed from an exclusionary hell; the illusions that drive self-delusion of separation, and vice versa.
Marsh’s Microcosm invites viewers to navigate a world where ideals of paradise and progress fracture under the weight of history. By blending symbols of labor, currency, and utopia, the installation challenges us to consider how value is constructed and who is excluded in the pursuit of perfection. In this drifting, precarious space, Marsh suggests that even in fragmentation, there is the possibility of reimagining what we hold dear—and perhaps, of building something more collective and enduring.
The exhibition will be on view through March 29, 2025.
Jenine Marsh (b. 1984, Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is an artist who uses sculpture and installation to explore themes of agency, mortality and value. Marsh received her BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts and her MFA from the University of Guelph. Marsh’s work has been exhibited in Canadian galleries such as Cooper Cole, Franz Kaka, Nuit Blache, Toronto; Vie d’ange, Centre Clark, Joe Project, Montreal; Griffin Art Projects, and Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver. She has also exhibited in international museums and galleries including Ashley Berlin, Berlin; Prairie Gallery, Chicago; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Essex Flowers, New York; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Gianni Manhattan, Vienna, OSL Contemporary, Oslo; Entrée Gallery, and Lulu, Mexico City. She has served as artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, at AiR Bergen at USF Verftet, Bergen; La Datcha, Berlin; SOMA, Mexico City; Rupert, Vilnius; and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson. She also had a public site-specific installation in the 2023 Nuit Blanche (Toronto) which was curated by Kari Cwynar. Marsh lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
