Dear Abel / Love Mike

Dear Abel / Love Mike is in LAB 203 from June 9 to July 4, 2026.

About the Exhibition:

Dear Abel / Love Mike puts on display the act of correspondence between artists in order to offer up insight into what happens in and through inspiration, admiration, and reflection. Through paintings, mixed media, and sculptures, Dear Abel / Love Mike seeks not only to invite community to bear witness to friendly dialogues in action through art, but also exhibit the inner workings of relationship building. Directly and indirectly through their work, Mike and Abel are eager to foreground how in and around art there is connection and community building as such. As people encounter others’ artworks, bonds form, ones that, in one way or another, open the door for kindred spirits with shared ideals, values, and aesthetics to come together. 

About the Artists:

Abel Gingerich is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in London, Ontario. Abel's body of work consists largely of oil paintings inspired by scenes found in real life, such as garbage, local concert venues, and liminal spaces. Abel takes on themes of consumption, self-destruction, and third spaces in his paintings. Using a technique that involves thick, loose brush strokes, he highlights the physical body that both his work and subject matter possess.

Mike Sloane, or Mona (they/them) teaches at Fanshawe College in so-called London, Ontario. Since completing their PhD on American Modernist poetry and ecological objects at Western University, they have published scholarly articles and book chapters on topics ranging from trash to veganism. Mike has published creative work in the Goose and The Temz Review. More recently, they self-published a number of books—namely, New Radish, General Poetry, Banalities (Volume One), and Premium & Marcel’s Lost Poems. Also, Mike is involved with several musical projects, one of which is called Genius Genius. Since 2023, Genius Genius has released over 30 albums. Other musical projects include Mountain Gator, Robert, Catnip, Tarantula, Mona, Charlie Flowers, Sue Ellen Mischke, The Ggruff Patches, and Genius Genius & The Rough Patches. And they work within the visual arts, especially collage, too, and have had work exhibited and subsequently sold at Forest City Gallery. Mike also runs the Gears concert series at Squeaky Wheel Bike co-op, Inputs Listening Events at DoughEV, and Please Please Help, an anti-poverty project that has all proceeds going to the London Food Bank.

Join us on June 13th from 2:00PM - 4:00PM for an opening reception to view the work and meet the artist.

All are welcome to this free event.

Featured Image: Abel Gingerich & Mike Sloane, —> ‎who knew <—, 2026, magazine clippings, 9x12"