I want to apologize for the lack of posts for so long. I’ve been dealing with some personal things that have kept me far too busy….BUT on Tuesday I’ll be making the gallery rounds, so you should have a new post by the end of next week!!
Thanks for your patience.
The Artist Project entrance
I don’t know what you got up to on Sunday, but me – I went and checked out The Artist Project at the Ex! I have to say, I truly enjoyed myself. This is one of those events that Toronto does so well, bringing so much creativity together into one space for your viewing pleasure. …Not that the show was entirely devoid of kitsch (I get a bit tired of “wall art”, mostly consisting of endless vases of bland flowers), but there was definitely an admirable collection of talent. The set up was fairly standard, with rows of booths, but there were some extra areas of interest, including the Art Chats. I caught part of William Huffman’s talk “Five Things About Contemporary Art (The You didn’t Know You Already Knew!)”
Like anyone else, I have my tastes, and there are certain types of art I find myself gravitating towards, especially in situations like these where you have lots of different artists crammed into one space. Now maybe your tastes differ from mine, and that’s fine, but for the purposes of this review you’re simply going to have to put up with what I like! I promise that I will go find some velvet clown paintings some other time.
So, on that note, I would like to make special mention of a few artists that I particularly enjoyed. The first booth I stopped at (I know, I know FIRST booth, but it was legitimately interesting) belonged to the artist Jeff Tallon (www.jefftallon.com) and what I found most engaging about his work was that he’d incorporated actual functioning smartphone barcodes in his work, and when you scanned the barcode, a phrase or word would pop up. Maybe it’s my technological incompetence talking, but I found that really cool!
scanning a barcode in one of Jeff Tallon's artworks
My second stop was at Janice Tayler’s booth (www.janicetayler.com) and what pulled me in at a first glance was COLOUR. Her paintings have an excellent marriage of warm and cool tones, and I especially liked how she used this great salmon colour. My favourite piece was definitely one titled Echoed Freefall, however all of her artwork was consistently lovely and she employs a great use of texture, varied brushstrokes and thickness of paint. Oh, to have an extra few thousand dollars lying around in order to buy some original art!!
Echoed Freefall
Iaian Greenson's booth
Next on the docket is another colour master, Iaian Greenson (www.iaiangreenson.com). I’m sad to say that I didn’t get an opportunity to speak to the artist himself, but I did talk with his representative from the gallery where he shows his work. This guy is an amazing mixed media artist, and his artwork has an almost comic book/1950′s/collage feel. Once again we have an artist with extremely vivid canvases (which always draws me like a moth to the flame!) and a lot of activity in his work. The piece that stood out for me (possibly because of the hot pink background) was Jet Boy Jet Girl which you can see in the middle row on the left <<< Please go to his website for a better view of his work!
Stev’nn Hall (www.stevnnhall.com) was another artist who caught my eye, though for completely different reasons. His work consists of mostly landscape photographs that he affixes to wooden surfaces, and then distresses in various ways. The end results have the effect of photos and films that have been exposed to sunlight and other damaging elements, but I think what attracted me most to his work was the quality of the light in his photographs, aswell as the sense of loneliness in the scenes, which I think I derive from the naked branches.
Studio 1to1 light installation
The last artists I would like to mention are Kira Varvanina and Edward Lin (www.studio1to1.ca), who built a light installation in the middle of the room. From the outside I know it doesn’t look like much, and unfortunately photographing the inside would have been a catastrophic failure, so I suggest you visit their site and see video clips that they’ve posted. In this installation, they synced an iPod Touch with a series of lights so that when you touched the interface of the program, the lights responded exactly as you’d touched it. I don’t know if it’s my endless fascination with people who understand technology better than I do, or the participation factor, but I really enjoyed this exhibit, and would love to see it on a larger scale!
I would like to finish off with a list of other artists that I would mention in more detail if it wouldn’t make this post obscenely long! I recommend you check out their sites:
The Power Plant (located at 231 Queens Quay West) is known for often featuring post-modern and conceptual artists. They’ve recently closed for renovations, and will be reopening on March 10. The Unveiling and Opening party will be held that evening from 6-10pm, and will be free to public, which is exciting because the Power Plant typically charges an entrance fee. So go check it out. Drink some wine, eat some cheese and crackers, and enjoy some art that may go a little out of your comfort zone, but I swear it’s good for you!!!
SIDE NOTE: The Artist Project opened today. Tickets are $10. Hopefully I’ll see you there!
Location: Leo Kamen Gallery
Show: Second Self
Artist: Meryl McMaster
Dates: Feb 9 – Mar 19
80 Spadina
The Leo Kamen Gallery is one of three galleries located on the 4th floor at 80 Spadina, just north of Adelaide, the other two being the Moore Gallery and the Trias Gallery. From an artist’s perspective, the Leo Kamen Gallery is a great space, with hardwood floors and high ceilings allowing for an open feeling.
The Second Self exhibit is a series of photographic portraits. Each of the subjects, who vary in age, race, and gender, is painted white and featured behind a wire sculpture. I did my first circuit around the gallery without reading the artist statement, and with no knowledge of the process Meryl McMaster used. My first impression was that the wire sculptures were like facial abstractions. They were, for the most part, very 2-dimensional, and appeared to be designed to enhance certain facial features.
Jin
After my first tour I paused to read the artist statement, and that was when I learned that the subjects had actually done blind contour drawings of themselves (for those that don’t know, these are drawings where you don’t remove your pencil from the paper, and don’t look at what you’re doing), that were then transformed into the wire configurations in the photos. What an interesting juxtaposition of how we see ourselves versus how we actually look! These two realities are literally superimposed over each other.
One particular piece stood out from among the others. In this piece, the wire framework actually seems to have been built around the subjects head, and it has been somewhat collapsed by the subject herself. The photos remained untitled on the wall, only labeled with numbers, and this one was labeled ‘7’, putting it in the middle of the series. However, the way the gallery had arranged the show made it the last photo you looked at, which I thought was fitting as it seems to be an act of dismantling the ‘second self’. It was only later, when I checked out Meryl McMaster’s website (www.merylmcmaster.com ) that I learned it was a portrait of the artist herself, titled Meryl #2.
Meryl 2
I had an opportunity to communicate with Meryl, to inquire why she included self-portraits and how they differed from the other pieces, and to ask why she chose to paint her subjects white, and she had this to say:
“I wanted to include myself in the work as this complex question of identity is one that I continue to explore through my art. So I felt that it was fitting to be part of the series and not just ask my subject to do it but also delve in myself and explore these questions. My drawing/sculpture is still a blind contour drawing that I did of myself but probably more abstract than the other portraits. I wanted to experiment with my wire portrait and get it to become more integrated with myself and become an extension of my body. For Meryl #2 I am starting to remove and break down this mask.
In painting my subjects white I had done research before hand looking at the history behind why different cultures did it for example I looked at the Elizabethan era and why people during that time painted their faces white, Kabuki theatre in Japanese culture, and face painting in Aboriginal culture around the world. For me I wanted the white face paint to conceal or mask that real person and act almost like protection paint.”
I would also like to include her artist statement for this body of work:
“Second Self reconsiders identity through portraiture by incorporating drawing and sculpture. My interest in the complexities of identity led me to work with various individuals. I started by asking friends, who are not technically trained in drawing to create self-portrait contour drawings. I then created my own wire sculptures based on the drawings. Both the drawings and sculptures, because they are representations of my subjects, act like masks or personas to conceal or change the subject’s identity. We invent personas, or ‘social masks,’ through clothing, hairstyles, or posture for example. Persona has come to define the individual for the public while concealing the real person. The mask, then, is like the second self. For me, these portraits put a twist on the way we view the subject and evoke a world not normally seen by the human eye.”
If you get the chance, go check out her show!! And if you want to see what shows are coming up at the Leo Kamen Gallery, the website is www.leokamengallery.com
This is a heads up about The Artist Project, happening March 3-6th at the Exhibition Place. This is going to be my first year attending the event, and I’m really excited about it. There’s always a risk in these types of situations that you’re going to see a lot of kitsch, and not a lot of really breathtaking art, but what I’ve seen on their website makes me hopeful. This is a great opportunity to check out a lot of different artists in one place. I’ll be there, and I’ll let you know how it went, post-show, but if you have some free time this weekend, tickets are $10. Check out their site for more information: www.theartistprojecttoronto.com
I am very proud to be a Toronto-based artist. The art community in this city is extremely diverse and the city itself is incredibly supportive of creativity and talent. This is my attempt to bring that world to you.. whoever you may be. Art is for everybody. It can be appreciated and enjoyed by anyone, and with that in mind I will be posting about current and upcoming shows, events, exhibits and the rest of the cornucopia of creative expression.
On a side note I would like to thank my best friend for being the inspiration for this project. If you would like to find out more about the local music scene, please check out her blog at www.audiolust.ca !!
