Mantis Mei

July 11 – September 19, 2025

Stride Gallery is excited to announce the Main Space exhibition, Field of Vision by Mantis Mei.

Please join us for the opening reception on July 11th from 6-9pm at Stride Gallery (220-625 11 Ave SW, T2R 0E1). Light snacks and refreshments will be available!

Field of Vision consists of works and experiments that perform a dissection on visual language. How much disassembly can take place before a sign loses its representational qualities?

In Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson writes that pastiche, or the cultural impulse to imitate, works as a wrapper, the signifier “becomes affirmed as autonomous and as a kind of unity in its own right,” eclipsing the signified (103). Works in Field of Vision equips the wrapper as material to further nullify any connection the visual has to its meaning. A word becomes a shape. A symbol becomes flat. A representation of something is not greater than itself. The distance between the object and understanding is compressed so tightly together, that depth is not even contended. All that is left is the surface.

Works made in residency at Stride Gallery are dialogical with the architecture of the space. White paint, wood, and window space are referenced and used as material that both expand and collapse the extent of the gallery.

Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 1992.

Mantis Mei is three oranges in a trenchcoat.

They are a Mohkinstsis/Calgary based artist and have recently been investigating themes of phenomenology, design thinking and processes, failure, and Buddhism. Mantis is currently working towards a BFA in Sculpture.