Curator Jasper Mulherin stands in front of a series of paintings by Vanessa McKernan, part of an inaugural group show at Bus Gallery.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
When Bus Gallery first opened in 1998, founded by Katharine Mulherin, the name was derived from the leftover letters of the Parkdale storefront it was in, which once read: BUSINESS. For the second iteration of the gallery, which opens this week in Toronto, Jasper Mulherin has kept the old name, which now has a new significance: it honours his late mother.
Katharine was a singular figure in the Toronto art world. She moved fast and took chances, discovered emerging artists and showed them alongside those more established, and inhabited storefronts with cheap rents and good bones to cultivate a thriving gallery that spanned Toronto, New York and Los Angeles. She exhibited artists who have gone on to have notable careers in Canada and internationally, including Michael Dumontier, Drue Langlois, Margaux Williamson, Kris Knight and Dean Baldwin Lew. In 2019, Katharine died by suicide. In the years since, there has been a gap in the Toronto art community that hasn’t been filled – but perhaps now has the chance to be.
It hasn’t been a linear journey for Jasper. The years after his mother’s death were hard, and the familiar faces in the art world served as a reminder of his loss. He decided to work in carpentry as a reprieve, yet a pull towards the arts remained.
“I needed some space from the art world. It felt very claustrophobic. Every time I would see someone who showed with her at the gallery, it would be emotional. So I went off and did carpentry for the past five years. But ultimately, it wasn’t fulfilling for my soul. I started getting this inclination that eventually I had to open the gallery, or else I would regret it forever,” Jasper says.
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Last year, Jasper began his gradual return to the art world. He got a job archiving a private art collection in Toronto, organizing, cataloguing, and preparing artworks for eventual sale. When the collector offered his industrial space at Sorauren Avenue and Dundas Street for Jasper to use as a gallery, he jumped at the opportunity and began the process of transforming the space from a bare-bones storage unit to a white cube gallery, installing gallery walls, bookcases, and giving everything a fresh coat of white paint.
Jasper innately understands the intricacies of starting and running a gallery, having observed his mother do it firsthand. As a child, he lived in the back of Bus Gallery in a windowless room with a hot plate and a mini-fridge. He jokes that he had 20 years of experience by the age of 24.
“I was four years old, and we were living in the back storage room of the gallery. I would spend literally every moment I wasn’t in daycare at the gallery,” Jasper says. “It started with me working openings and essentially being craft services and handing out cookies and sodas as a small child. Then, as I grew up, I would be more hands-on. By the time I was probably 13, I was going down to Miami and New York and working the fairs.”
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The inaugural show, titled Give me my Ghost Back, is open now through March 29. Jasper describes it as an exhibition that explores “the theme of memory, haunting, and the peripheral sensations that come with grief.” On a larger scale, Jasper hopes to emulate the spaces Katharine created for the city – a community where artists and collectors alike could connect through a shared passion for the arts and creativity.
When visitors first enter the space, down the alley directly next to Sorauren Park, they’re greeted by two photographs of Katharine. The images are from a series, titled Never A Bride, she did in 2001 for a Contact show curated by Sophie Hackett. In the photos, Katharine is draped in white dresses with puffed shoulders and pools of tulle. The change-room backdrop, with a hard flash obscuring her face, creates a study in contradictions. These photographs set the tone for the exhibition, a metaphor for Katharine’s presence within the project, both felt and enshrouded.
Katherine Mulherin’s ‘Never A Bride,’ taken for a Contact show in 2001, set the tone for the exhibition at Bus Gallery.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
Alongside these works, Jasper has invited artists his mother showed, including Mike Bayne and Claire Greenshaw, to participate, as well as new artists he’s discovered who are completing their MFAs or showing at Artist Projects – the same boots-on-the-ground way Katharine would discover artists.
“I feel like it’s more healing than anything, as cheesy as that sounds. I feel like I found my purpose again. It’s a really great feeling to reconnect with all these artists, and it feels like what I’m meant to do,” Jasper says.
The gallery’s guiding principle? Jasper says it’s simple: “What would my mom do?”