About
Join Director of Programs and Curator Crystal Mowry for a tour of her latest project Thick as Thieves.
How is an exhibition like a plot? The interrelations between artworks, like the artists who make them and the public who encounter them, yield conspiracies and allyships. Each object can be an agent – a powerful symbol of the various bonds that we nurture or conceal throughout our lives. From an early age we learn that resilience comes from connection, whether with other living beings, to a particular context, or as part of an exclusive network. Thick as Thieves brings together works forged in intense, and often covert forms of connection. Drawn largely from the MacKenzie’s Permanent Collection, this selection of works invites us to consider how themes of fidelity, mutual desire, and fraternity formed by circumstance or power have held the interest of contemporary artists.
Presenter Bio
Crystal Mowry
Crystal Mowry (she/her) is the Director of Programs at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. She previously held the position of Senior Curator at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery where she oversaw the gallery’s exhibitions, collections, and publishing activities. Her curatorial work includes group exhibitions such as I’ll be your Mirror, The Perennials, What the Bat Knows, and Romancing the Anthropocene, one of three zones commissioned by the City of Toronto for its annual Nuit Blanche event. Her solo projects with artists Deanna Bowen, Maggie Groat, and Ernest Daetwyler have received Exhibition of the Year Awards from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (now Galleries Ontario Galeries). In 2020 she was a recipient of a Waterloo Region Arts Award and in 2024 was shortlisted for the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence. Her writing has appeared in various artist-focused publications on the work of internationally active artists such as Brendan Fernandes, Shary Boyle, and August Klintberg among others. She regularly participates on industry juries and advisories, most notably for the Sobey Art Award (2015), the Scotiabank Photography Award (2021), and the Canadian pavilion for the 2026 Venice Biennale. Crystal was born in Tkaronto (Toronto) where she completed undergraduate studies in sculpture and installation at the Ontario College of Art and Design University before earning a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in (Kjipuktuk) Halifax.
