Molly Steels: I Am/Was/Always
November 4–December 5, 2026
Student Gallery
The philosopher Diana Prokofyeva considers a photograph to be a phenomenon that exists between two worlds—the living and the dead—a way to avoid death by copying a moment and suspending it within time. She suggests that a photograph gives confidence of existence, a way to state, “Here I am and was, and always shall have been.”
I Am/Was/Always is an evolving series that looks to photography as a method of conceptualizing grief and mortality. Using family archives from the past century and conceptual imagery, I locate myself within a chain of human experience. I look to the women who came before me, observing the proof of their existence with reverence and the knowledge that I will one day add to this catalogue. Through this series I aim to overshadow existential fear with curiosity.
Ephemeral aspects of nature are woven into this work as both an unrelenting force and a source of comfort. While creating I Am/Was/Always, I found a fortune teller's prediction for the life of my great-aunt Sylvia. Hidden among love letters and family photos, it was a treasured reminder of the wonder she held for life. Excerpts from this letter are found in a short video, set against a lake we both swam in, decades apart. This body of water has held generations of my family. As Gooderham Lake empties and refills, life is sustained and I am reminded of the world as a shared temporary experience. Photography provides a way to observe this temporality from both afar and within—a tool to turn existential crisis into appreciation for those who live before and after our own fleeting bodies—a collective chant of “Here I am and was and always shall have been.”
— Molly Steels
Molly Steels, Pauline, 2025, inkjet print, pressed flowers. Courtesy of the artist
Molly Steels, Patti and Susan, circa 1980, chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist
Molly Steels, A Place to Rest, 2025, inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist
Artist Bio
Molly Steels
Molly Steels is a Toronto-based artist originally from Bradford, Ontario. By worldbuilding in tandem with family archives, Steels blends the past into the present. Here she creates surreal conceptual spaces using photography as a tool for connection across time. Through experiments with materiality, collage and the treatment of images as objects she aims to visualize intangible qualities of grief, longing, community and memory - with an emphasis on the nuance within these experiences.
Steels’s work has been exhibited in galleries and at festivals across Canada, including The Aurora Cultural Centre, Sankofa Square, Artspace TMU and Contemporary Calgary during Exposure Photography Festival's International Open Call. She recently completed her first artist residency with Gallery 44, culminating in a solo exhibition within their Members’ Gallery. Steels holds a BFA in Photography and a minor in Sociology from Toronto Metropolitan University.
