Embroidered Fables and Figures October 9 - November 7, 2026 Opening Reception Friday October 9, 7-10pm
Barbara Klunder
Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present a major exhibition of Barbara Klunder's embroidered tapestries, her WallPieces , and close to forty of her small textile characters, her Eccentrics , drawn from histories then and now.
Are they paintings or flags? Decorations or warnings? Posters or tapestries? A bit of everything. Having been an illustrator, my first desire is to make a picture, and being an environmentalist, it’s also my way to celebrate nature. As a past designer of fashion items, my idea of using fabric, even creating fabric, was irresistible, but I wanted to include the myths and folktales along with warnings about our planet's fragility. Skulls, found in every piece, represent future dangers. Every piece is hand-stitched. With cotton threads. Some are backed with silk, or more linen, for stability. -- Barbara Klunder, September 2026
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Responses and planning are no longer available for this event.
A new publication accompanies the exhibition.
Barbara Klunder was born in Toronto and attended the Ontario College of Art as a teenager. She lives and works on Toronto's Ward's Island.
From the back cover of the recent publication Fables and Tattoos , which accompanied Klunder's exhibition of the same name last year, is the following quote:
Barbara Klunder is an artist gifted in many genres and media, from book and magazine illustrations, 4 font designs, to paper-cuts, puppet-theatre and textile works.
Klunder's work is in the permanent collections of the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Textile Museum of Canada, the University of Toronto Rare Book Collection, The Arts & Letters Club, and Toronto Archives. Published gallery hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 11:00–17:00. Appointment attendance requires arranging it with the gallery; appointment hours are not published. Admission price is unpublished. Contact the gallery to arrange accessibility accommodations.
Friday, October 9
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Contact the gallery to arrange accessibility accommodations.
Paul Petro Contemporary Art · 980 Queen Street West
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