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Yorkminster Park Gallery

Margaret Glew

Loose Threads

September 12 - October 29, 2026
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 20, 2-4pm
Artist in Conversation with John Gagné: Wednesday, October 14, 6:30-8:30pm

Yorkminster Park Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of quilted textiles by Canadian artist Margaret Glew. Loose Threads explores memory, material history, and the passage of time. The title speaks to both the literal frayed edges of the fabric and the unraveling of stories, histories, and lives.

Glew makes hand-stitched, quilted textiles out of used clothing. Cloth is inherently intimate; the repurposed clothing carries the ghosts of prior wearers, embodying lived history and human presence. Nestled within many of these pieces are small, discrete windows of unbleached cotton featuring intuitive drawings. If the clothing represents collective history, these raw cotton fragments function as quiet interior landscapes – spaces where subconscious marks offer a direct, unmediated record of the artist's presence.

The raw edges signal vulnerability, impermanence, and a refusal to neatly package or hide the fraying realities of life. Hand-stitching functions as a visible record of time, presence, and human touch, binding disparate fragments into a collective narrative.

Stripped of complex colour palettes, the exhibition relies on a minimalist language of black and white, punctuated by accents of red. This restricted palette serves to focus attention on rich textures, frayed edges, and rhythmic lines of stitching. Ultimately, Loose Threads is a stark testament to what endures - a quiet space where the fragments of the past are rewoven into a landscape of collective memory.

About the Artist

Margaret Glew is a Toronto-based painter and textile artist with a 40-year exhibition history across Canada and the United States; Her intuitive, process-driven abstracts appear in notable public and corporate collections, including the City of Toronto Art Collection, and the Richmond Hill Public Library. Recent solo projects include Burning Fire Blues – part of the Collective City Gallery Project – and Recent Work at The Modern Toronto, as well as a featured textile exhibition at the 2023 World of Threads Festival.

Image: Untitled, appliqued and hand quilted textile, 55" x 47", 2025

www.margaretglew.com
www.instagram.com/margaret_glew

Gallery Hours:
Saturday: Noon - 3:00 pm
Sunday: 10:00 am - 11:00 am and 12:15 pm - 1:00 pm
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