Ritual Held
by Julianne Chladny
posAbilities Artist-In-Residence
February 16 - 27, 2026
Reception: February 26, 6-8pm
Ritual Held brings together drawings and participatory gestures that explore how meaning is carried through everyday acts of care. Centred on repeated practices and familiar objects, the exhibition considers ritual as something shaped through use and attention, a structure that supports shared experience and connection.
Each piece is an original work, professionally mounted on wood panel and accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity.
Below you will find images, dimensions, and availability.
Events/ Flowers - 36 x 36
“Love/Return”
36 x 36”
Price: $1500
I chose a gifted flower to represent the ritual of expressing and accepting love. Its form carries the truth of reality; the way beauty changes, how it can be nuanced and unique, and ultimately how we embrace love in imperfect conditions. In many rituals surrounding love, flowers serve as a gentle language for what cannot be spoken, offering care and recognition when words fall short. By drawing the flower in its final state, the work reflects the moment when love meets acceptance, and ritual becomes a way of honouring both affection and acceptance.
“Death/Emanation”
36 x 36”
Price: $1200
Death is represented through a macro rose, a symbol that holds both beauty and impermanence. Enlarged beyond its natural scale, the blossom emphasizes the fleeting nature of life; its delicacy, brilliance, and inevitable passing. In moments of loss, flowers become part of ritual: offerings that honour the life that was and acknowledge shared grief. Here, beauty functions as a form of solidarity, a quiet reminder that even in absence, connection endures.
Gestures - 24 x 24
“Cheers/ Momentous”
24 x 24”
Price: $750
The gesture of clinking glasses is one of the most widely recognized rituals of celebration. Its origins date back to ancient Greece, where wine was offered to the gods in shared acknowledgment of community and gratitude. In medieval Europe, the sound of glasses touching was believed to symbolize trust, a gesture showing that no one had tampered with another’s drink. Over time, the “cheers” became a ritual of togetherness, marking moments of joy, connection, and collective intention.
In this drawing, two hands meeting in a toast represent more than celebration alone. The act of raising a glass is a small, familiar ceremony; a way of pausing to honour the present moment and the people within it. Rendered with care, the image becomes a symbol of shared experience, the rituals of gathering, and the desire to recognize life’s fleeting pleasures together.
“Gift”
24 x 24”
Price: $500
Balloons have always marked some of the happiest moments in my life. I’ve made a ritual of blowing them up for the birthdays of my loved ones, especially my son; a small gesture to create joy and mark another year together. One of my earliest memories is waking in the middle of the night to find my mother quietly inflating balloons for my birthday. In that moment, I understood the effort behind the magic; the invisible labour of love that makes celebration possible.
In this drawing, the balloon becomes a symbol of those intimate rituals that often go unnoticed: the preparation, the care, and the desire to make someone feel special. It is a reminder that joy is rarely effortless, but something created through intention, work, and love.
“Friendship”
24 x 24
Price: $750
The gesture of two hands forming a heart has become a contemporary ritual; a simple, universal symbol of friendship, affection, and shared understanding. Though widely recognized, its meaning remains deeply personal: it is a way of saying I see you, I value you, without needing any words at all.
In this drawing, the meeting of two hands becomes a quiet ceremony of connection. The act requires cooperation, intention, and mutual presence; the essential ingredients of friendship. By rendering this familiar symbol with care, the piece reflects how even modern gestures carry emotional weight and evolve into ritual through repeated use.
The abstracted elements surrounding the hands echo the space where relationships are built: fluid, shifting, and shaped by the small acts of recognition we offer one another. Through this image, the heart-shaped gesture becomes a reminder that friendship is sustained through ritual; the everyday choices to reach out, join together, and create meaning in common.
“Offering”
24 x 24 “
Price: $600
Offering food is one of the oldest human rituals; a gesture that communicates care, welcome, and belonging. Hands outstretched with a bowl of fruit symbolize nourishment in its broadest sense: not only the sharing of what we have, but the desire to sustain and support one another. In many cultures, giving food is an act of hospitality and gratitude, a way of saying you are valued, you are included.
For me, this image represents the quiet generosity woven into daily life; the rituals of preparing, giving, and receiving that form the foundation of community. In the drawing, the hands and bowl become symbols of exchange, reminding us that offering sustenance is also offering connection.
Through careful rendering and subtle abstraction, the piece reflects the tenderness in this simple act: the universal desire to feed those we love and to be nourished in return.
Objects (Alter) - 12 x 12
“Space”
12 x 12”
Price: $350
The sage bundle represents a ritual of cleansing, connection, and respect for the unseen. When I lived in the Northwest Territories, I participated in the use of sage and sweetgrass within Inuit communities; practices rooted in a relationship with the spirit world and the land. To honour both the traditions I grew up with and my son’s Cree heritage, I chose to draw our own sage bundle.
“Carefort”
12 x 12”
Price: $200
The crystal reflects a ritual of comfort and care. My mother once gave me a piece of quartz during a difficult time, offering it as something that could cleanse or ease my energy. Whether through belief or through the crystal’s own molecular structure and resonance, it became a symbol of support. In this drawing, the crystal represents the small rituals we rely on to restore ourselves; gestures of protection, hope, and the quiet transfer of care from one person to another.
Fire (Candle) - “Moment”
The burning candle represents intention made visible. Lighting a candle has always been a small ritual of focus and presence; a way to mark celebration, to honour a moment, or simply to enjoy the quiet beauty of life. In this drawing, the candle becomes a symbol of attention itself: a reminder that even brief flames can hold meaning, warmth, and reflection.
Objects (Transfer of Knowledge) - 6 x 6
“Home is Where Culture Moves THrough YOu”
6 x 6”
Price: 50$
My book “Lunch Notes” grew from a much quieter ritual: writing a short note for my son and placing it in his lunch each day. These messages were small gestures of care; encouragement, reassurance, or reminders, meant to accompany him beyond my presence. Over time, the repetition of this act became its own form of knowledge-sharing, a way of passing on values, language, and attention through consistency rather than instruction.
By drawing the book, I’m reflecting on how ritual lives in the everyday. Whether through teaching, writing, or a simple note tucked into a lunch, knowledge is shared through sustained, intentional acts that quietly shape connection and becoming.
Sharing knowledge has always felt ritualistic to me. It depends on intention, repetition, and trust; the belief that what is offered will be received, carried, and perhaps returned in a new form. Books formalize that exchange, allowing words and ideas to move between people over time.
“What IF”
6 x 6”
Price: 75$
These antique skeleton keys entered my life at a time when I still believed wholeheartedly in the promise of true love. I held onto them for years with the quiet hope that they might one day become a gift for someone whose dreams aligned with mine; a symbol of mutual purpose and shared possibility. In that sense, the keys carried the weight of longing, imagination, and an ideal of partnership.
But keys also embody the rituals of everyday life: safety, access, threshold, and home. They mark the moments when we enter and leave, protect and permit, open and close. They are objects of transition, granting passage or holding boundaries.
In this drawing, the keys become a bridge between the intimate and the ordinary. The abstracted elements surrounding them echo the internal space where desire meets reality; where personal hopes intersect with the pragmatic rituals that shape our days. Through this piece, the keys stand not only as symbols of love once imagined, but as reminders of the ongoing rituals that ground us: security, belonging, and the freedom to choose what we open and what we leave behind.
“Desire”
6 x 6”
Price: $250
The square knot, or Hercules knot, carries both symbolic and personal weight for me. I first learned to tie it during military training; a place where knots were taught as tools of survival, discipline, and precision. Even then, I was struck by how something so practical could also feel intimate: two strands crossing, looping, and holding because they move together in the right rhythm. It stayed with me as more than a skill; it became a metaphor.
In many love rituals, this knot represents union, protection, and the binding of two lives through shared intention. That symbolism resonates deeply with my own desire for connection; for the kind of love built on reciprocity, resilience, and the patient act of working together.
In this drawing, the knot becomes a meeting point between past and present, knowledge and longing. The surrounding abstracted elements echo the internal space where memory intertwines with hope; the place where tying, holding, and letting go all coexist.
The piece reflects how knowledge is shared, how love is learned, and how a simple knot can carry the weight of both history and desire.
Objects (Symbols of Repetition) - 12 x 9 and 11 x 14
“Liberation”
11 x 14”
Price: $450
This shell carries personal significance, collected by my son during a family holiday. The act of gathering small objects from meaningful moments is a ritual I’ve always cherished; a way of anchoring memory in something tangible. These mementos become vessels for time, holding traces of joy, discovery, and the fleetingness of childhood.
In this drawing, the shell becomes more than an object; it becomes a site of contemplation. The abstracted elements surrounding it are meant to visualize the internal space where memory is processed; the quiet distance between an object and the emotions it evokes. By rendering the shell with care and placing it within a subtly altered perceptual field, I aim to show how rituals of collecting shape our sense of continuity, connection, and belonging.
“just”
12 x 9”
Price: $100
This small sharpened pencil represents the ritual of practice; the quiet repetition that shapes both skill and self. A pencil worn down to its final length carries evidence of time, patience, and devotion. It becomes an artifact of effort: every mark, every correction, every layer of attention condensed into a single, humble object.
In this drawing, the pencil becomes a symbol of persistence and the meditative rituals that accompany creative work. The abstracted elements surrounding it evoke the internal space of concentration; that contemplative zone where repetition becomes rhythm and practice becomes its own form of becoming. Through this piece, the pencil is lifted from the everyday and offered as a reminder that growth is often found in the smallest, most consistent gestures.
“More”
12 x 9”
Price: $150
The toothbrush represents one of the most ordinary yet essential rituals of self-care. It requires intention, motivation, and repetition; the foundations of any meaningful practice. As an object, it sits firmly in the realm of the profane, a tool so mundane it often goes unnoticed. Yet its purpose is profoundly important: sustaining health, preventing harm, and quietly affirming a commitment to one’s future self.
In this drawing, the toothbrush becomes a symbol of everyday compassion. The surrounding abstracted elements reflect the contemplative space behind even our simplest routines; the small, steady actions through which we care for ourselves without ceremony. By elevating such an unremarkable object, the work acknowledges that ritual is not reserved for the sacred; it is woven into the rhythm of daily life.
3D Pieces:
“Everyday”
One Size Fits Most, 100% Cotton
Price 80$
Everyday is a hand-sewn cotton tunic designed to tie first at the back and then at the front. The act of fastening the garment becomes part of its meaning; a small choreography of attention. Made from 100% cotton, the material rests simply against the body, emphasizing touch, breath, and movement.
Getting dressed is one of the most repeated rituals of daily life. In this piece, that ordinary act is slowed and made visible. The tying gestures require intention, reinforcing how even the most routine actions, preparing oneself to meet the day, carries structure and meaning.
“Adornment”
Concrete and Stainless Steel
Price: 30$
These concrete cast necklaces pair raw, weight-bearing forms with stainless steel chains. Worn close to the body, they transform an industrial material into something intimate and personal.
Adornment is one of the oldest human rituals; a way of marking identity, belonging, and intention. In these pieces, the act of placing the necklace around the neck becomes a small, repeated gesture of self-definition. The contrast between concrete and steel underscores both fragility and endurance, suggesting that even what feels heavy can be carried with care.
22 castings of bottles
Sizes: 4” - 10” in Height
25$ Each
This casting project consists of twenty-two plaster tape casts of bottles; objects closely associated with consumption, habit, and social ritual. Bottles function as quiet witnesses to daily routines: celebration, dependency, abstinence, nourishment, excess, and restraint. By casting them, their original function is suspended, transforming vessels of use into hollow records of presence and absence.
The repetition of the form emphasizes ritualized behaviour; how actions around consumption are often cyclical, socially reinforced, and deeply personal. Each cast retains the shape of what once contained something, while now holding nothing, drawing attention to absence as an active state rather than a lack. In this way, the work creates space to consider abstinence not as deprivation, but as intention, pause, or choice.
The materiality of plaster tape; fragile, temporary, and bodily in its associations; further underscores themes of vulnerability and care. These casts propose a quiet confrontation with how we relate to substances, self-regulation, and communal norms around consumption. Rather than offering judgment, the work invites reflection: on what we take in, what we refuse, and how these decisions shape identity, ritual, and survival.
Installed collectively, the bottles read as a shared archive of behaviour; individual yet universal, suggesting that rituals of consumption and restraint are not isolated acts, but relational ones, embedded within broader social and cultural frameworks.
Participitory Installation
Community Engagement
As part of the residency, I will develop a participatory installation that evolves over the course of the exhibition, inviting community members to reflect on their own relationships to ritual. Visitors will be invited to contribute brief written reflections, drawings, or symbolic notes on circular paper forms, responding to the routines, gestures, and practices that hold meaning in their lives. These contributions echo the circular omissions present throughout the drawings, allowing spaces of visual absence to be met through collective presence and participation.
Contributions will be suspended from ropes or strings using small clips, forming a growing field of interconnected gestures. This structure emphasizes movement, accumulation, and relational exchange, reinforcing ritual as something shared, evolving, and woven between people. As the exhibition unfolds, the installation will become a living archive of personal practices, memories, and intentions shaped by the community itself.
In addition to the participatory installation, the residency will include a facilitated drawing workshop focused on working from life and photography while reflecting on ritual and personal practice. Participants will explore how everyday objects can carry emotional and symbolic weight, engaging with drawing as a process of attention, repetition, and meaning-making.
Together, these elements create space for collective reflection, creative exchange, and deeper engagement with ritual as both personal practice and shared social structure.
Ropes installation pieces are available to purchase for $200 each.
(The drawing workshop is now full. Thank you for your interest!)
Residency Proposal:
As an artist working primarily in pencil and charcoal, my drawings practice is both a ritual and a method of inquiry. Through sustained, detailed mark-making, I explore perception and emotional resonance. The repetition inherent in my drawing - layering, erasing, refining, is central to how I understand and represent familiar forms. My work investigates how shifting perspectives, both literal and psychological, can alter understanding of what we see. By blending precise realism with subtle abstraction, I aim to create images that invite prolonged observation and reflection.
This residency offers an opportunity to deepen my engagement with drawing as a daily ritual - one that reveals the complexity and vulnerability embedded in everyday experience, and challenges viewers to reconsider the quiet moments that shape how we relate to ourselves and others.
I will develop a series of drawings that explore the psychological significations of everyday objects [and gestures] I associate with personal rituals. In essence; finding meaning in the profane. Through still life studies combined with some abstracted imagery, the work will examine how repeated use, memory, and contemplation transform ordinary items into symbolic markers of practice. This project will blend realism and abstraction to reflect the layered, often intimate nature of ritual in daily life, offering a meditative visual inquiry into how meaning is formed through repeated acts.
Purchasing a Work
If you are interested in acquiring a piece, please contact me directly:
Email: julianne.chladny@gmail.com
Please include the title of the work in your message. I am happy to answer questions, provide additional images, discuss placement, or arrange a viewing.
Local pickup and delivery options can be coordinated.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Alternatives Gallery and Artists in Our Midst, and to PosAbilities for their generous support through the Employee Artist-in-Residence Program, which provided essential time and resources to sustain this work.
Appreciation is also extended to Aaniya Asrani, Benjamen Massey, Linden Chladny, Claire Pemberton-Pigott, Rolund Peters, Alisha DeLeon, Radka Prihodova, Sandra Dunn, Raymond Chladny, Debbie Stafford, Cheryl Covey, Ross Birdwise, Colin Thomas, and Alex Dewar Design