PORTRAITS: Icons of Thrift
Thu, May 28
|Worth Gallery
Designer and artist Karey Shinn photographs dolls with a sense of awe, style, and wit. Join us May 28 (6–10pm) at Worth Gallery, Toronto for the opening reception. Exhibition runs through June 7.
Time & Location
May 28, 2026, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Worth Gallery, 830 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M6J 1V3, Canada
About the event
Designer and artist, Karey Shinn photographs dolls with a sense of awe, style, and wit.
Using thrifted 12-inch dolls, hand-sewn couture, and carefully staged photography, Karey Shinn transforms discarded objects into striking portraits, characters, and miniature worlds full of dignity, humour, and humanity.
The exhibition explores transformation, reuse, nostalgia, fashion, performance, and the emotional power of handwork and imagination. Rescued from thrift stores and plastic bags, these figures are given new identities and new lives through art.
Photographed close-up with wide-angle lenses, the images create an uncanny illusion of human reality — a reflection of the visual language we now experience daily through phones, selfies, and social media.
At the centre of the exhibition is Selfie with Joe: a photograph of a 12-inch version of the artist taking a selfie in front of her monumental portrait of “Muskoka Joe.” Worlds within worlds. Icons of thrift.
“The photographs make people smile, and…