21 wade ave, unit 2, toronto

Maya Fuhr | Idols of absence | 13 Sep – 1 Nov, 2025

In Idols of Absence, Los Angeles–based artist Maya Fuhr presents photographs and cutouts of silhouettes: life-size portraits, flattened images, and latex imprints that evoke the presence of celebrity. Known for her fashion and editorial work with public figures, Fuhr now turnsthe camera on the culture that produces them.

Her work references the Victorian craze for cartes de visite, or cartomania—small photographic portraits cheaply produced, collected, and shared in the 1860s. Subjects were staged in studios against velvet drapery and props, creating a visual sameness much like today’s Instagram feeds or TikTok loops. Circulating endlessly, these images became objects to collect, trade, and consume. Fuhr extends this history through her materials: using cardboard, a staple of shipping and packaging, she underscores how celebrity images are manufactured, distributed, and reproduced like everyday products. Andy Warhol later amplified this cycle in his Marilyn silkscreens, showing how glamour thins through repetition. Fame thrives on exposure until the subject is hollowed out. Monroe embodied this paradox: recognized as the most photographed woman in the world, she reportedly scratched and smeared her own images in resistance to imposed projections.

Fuhr brings this trajectory into the present. Staged against drapery, her cardboard silhouettes hover between portrait and prop, subject and object. Each figure is both present and absent, a hollow outline suspended between sculpture and shadow, gallery and backstage. Many are fragmented, faceless, or interrupted by supports, hinting at the constructed nature of self and the personas we perform. Through photography and object-making, she pushes the material further by tattooing bodies onto silicone latex that mimics skin, blurring the line between flesh and image. The works are uncanny, showing how forms can be stretched, worn thin, and endlessly reproduced. They mark the tension between who we are and what we present to the world, inviting viewers to consider their own bodies, performances, and layered identities.

Fuhr writes: When I moved to LA and started photographing celebrities, I expected it to feel stimulating and inspiring, with room for creativity. But the sets were so staged and performative that my attention shifted from their personas to the shapes—the outlines they created. The silhouettes grow out of this displacement: her editorial work defined by spectacle, her art practice by intimacy and stillness.

As viewers move through the exhibition, the silhouettes pose harder questions. What happens when the performance ends? Does the image outlive the person, or fade into absence? Are these portraits or placeholders for the roles fame demands? In looking at them, we also look at ourselves: what we choose to see, what we worship, when only the outline remains. Idols of Absence leaves us in that charged space where presence falters and projection takes over.

— Nikki Peck, Curator

Maya Fuhr (b. 1989) is a Victoria-born, Los–Angeles based multimedia artist. Her images and world-building installations interrogate the role of iconography in photography and consumer culture through the construction of identity. Across her work, whether she’s creating white-cube installations or shooting playful campaigns, her layered images oscillate with the tension between concealing and unveiling, inviting her audiences to peel back an image’s layers to explore what lingers beneath its surface.

Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Patel Brown and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and SADE Gallery in Los Angeles; in group exhibitions at Arsenal Contemporary in Toronto, JO-HS Gallery in Mexico City, Locker Room Gallery in New York; and in art fairs like NADA and Art Toronto, among many others. In her editorial practice, she has photographed for brands like Chanel and Coach, and has been recognized numerous times by the Canadian Art Fashion Awards.

Nikki Peck has worked in the Vancouver art community for over 15 years across galleries, institutions, and artist studios. She holds an MFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2020) and a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal. She began her career at Blanket Gallery in 2010, later held positionsat Winsor Gallery and Macaulay + Co. Fine Art, and co-founded Telephone Gallery. Today, she works independently as an art consultant and collaborator, supporting artists, collectors, and institutions.She also serves on the board of the BC Women’s Health Foundation Art Collection and enjoys drawing and tennis.