ArtToronto

Author: artoronto

  • Gordon Becker : Making a Spectacle

    October 19 – November 11, 2011
    Opening /Artist Talk: Saturday, October 22, 1:30pm
    CANADIAN SCULPTURE CENTRE
    500 Church Street
    Toronto ON M4Y 2C8
    Tel: 647.435.5858
    Email: gallery@cansculpt.org
    Hours: Tuesday – Friday 12-6; Saturdays 11-4

    The Sculptors Society of Canada is proud to present a solo exhibition by GORDON BECKER.

    Making a Spectacle…theft of movement explores the pain and exhilaration of dancers.

    Becker began (wood) carving the movement of dancers in 1984. Through his meticulous detailing of life-size dancers – the spirit of dance isenhanced by the directness, honesty and simplicity of his approach.  The purity of dance, the transformation of bodies, limbs and hands symbolize his dream of flying…his dream of eternal flight….

    Upon completing his studies at OCAD, Becker apprenticed with a mastercarver in New Zealand. Becker’s work has been included in numerous commercial films and commissions. His work has participated in numerous exhibitions in Canadaand Europe. In 2003 he was invited to exhibit at the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy, where he was the recipient of the Gold Medallion in the Sculpture Category. Becker was elected into the sculptors Society of Canada in 2000.

  • Show Off @ the Junction

    On Display from October 18 -30, 2011
    Street Party on Friday, October 21,  7 – 11pm
    Dundas St W. West of Keele St.
    Please visit for  more information about
    Participating Retailers, Designers & Artists
    www.mason-studio.com/showoff
    Or contact: showoff@mason-studio.com
    T: 416- 453-5536

    Two designers found themselves wandering about Dundas West in the Junction. On that particular day, many of the retail shops were closed which left them clutching the glass of their spacious shop windows gawking at the merchandise from the sidewalks.

     This turn of events led Toronto-based design firm Mason to host Show Off @ the Junction; an event where local designers and artists are let loose on these awe-inspiring glass boxes to create jaw-dropping installations which showcase the amazing retailers and product the community has to offer.

     The event, which includes 12 retail shops and art galleries on the strip of Dundas St. W, west of Keele, unites over 20 design-professionals providing an opportunity to create conceptual spaces all the while supporting independent business owners and their unique product.

     The art galleries, eclectic home furnishing and fashion retail shops that have cropped-up in this neighbourhood are not the only unique feature of this area; the sense of community and pride that residents and shop owners have for their neighbourhood is what makes the Junction the perfect location for Mason to host the first, of what is expected to become an annual event which will take place in different neighbourhoods around town.

     Along with the parade of window installations which will be on display from October 18–30 the city can look forward to a Street Party on October 21st.

     Shops and galleries will keep their doors open until 11pm with unique offerings in support of the event. Owners will be on hand to chat about their unique goods alongside the artists and designers who will reveal the secrets and stories behind their installations

  • Days of Sakha-Yakutia Culture

    Tuayarima Kuo

    October 15 – 30, 2011
    Opening: Saturday, October 22, 12-3pm
    Bezpala Brown Gallery
    17 Church Street (Front and Church)Tuayarima Kuo
    For inquiries, please contact: Fariz Kovalchuk
    T: 416-907-6875 or 647-929-4878
    fariz@bezpalabrown.com
    http://bezpalabrown.com/ehhibitions

    Admission:$25.00 (includes music, Sakha culinary delicacies and alcoholic/non-alcoholic beverages

    As part of our continuing celebration of Days of Sakha-Yakutia Culture, Bezpala Brown Gallery presents:

    · Improvisations by Claudia & Herman Khatylaevs, performing on more than 15 traditional Yakutian musical instruments
    · A fashion show of celebratory Yakutian costumes designed by Avgustina Filippova
    · Traditional Sakha delicacies created by celebrity chef Innokentiy Tarbakhov
    · Ms. Filippova and Mr. Tarbakhov will be present at the reception to guide us along in our exploration of Sakha culture

    In addition to the music, garb and food that will be presented, we continue our exploration of northern art by presenting a unique opportunity to contrast Northern Canadian visual art and sculpture with that of the works of Sakha artists. Among others, the Sakha masterpieces of Mikhail Starostin (etchings and oils), Chikachev (prints) and Evgenia Arbugaeva (photography) will continue to be on display. The gallery contrasts these artworks with the work of 17 Inuit artists including Annie Pootoogook (etching and aquatint), Shuvinai Ashoona (etching and aquatint), Kavavaow Mannomee (lithograph) and Nuna Parr (sculpture). Mr. Starostin and Ms. Arbugaeva will be in attendance at the Reception to discuss their creations.

  • Don’t be Sentimental by Sarah Clifford-Rashotte

    October 7 – 30, 2011
    Opening: Friday October 7, 7 – 10 pm
    LE GALLERY
    1183 Dundas St.West
    Toronto, ON, M6J 1X3
    T: 416 – 532 – 8467
    E-mail: wil@le-gallery.ca
    Hours: Wed – Sun 12 -6 

    Sarah Clifford-Rashotte’s, fourth solo show at LE Gallery features drawings as well as photo and text-based works that explore the desire and disgust associated with romanticizing experience. Her new work addresses female identity, reconstructed memories and the poetic. She has evolved a distinct visual vocabulary that is at once personally descriptive, while at the same time, representative of an archetypal struggle for self-preservation and obliteration. In early 2012, she will be releasing her second publication, “Book of some Poems” a collection of text-based pieces and writing.

    Clifford-Rashotte is based in Toronto, Ontario and holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Currently, Sarah has a new billboard text piece featured in the Art Moves Festival in Torun, Poland.

  • Gallery Hop / Evening Magazine Launch

    Saturday, September 24, 5;30 – 7:30
    CANADIAN ART FALL ISSUE

    On the evening of Saturday 24th 2011, the Canadian Art Foundation’s 16th Annual Gallery Hop wasn’t the only thing worth celebrating in Toronto. That same evening, Canadian Art Magazine celebrated the launch of its fall issue and 25 years in production.

    Mark Glassman of Pages Bookstore (now closed) in centre. Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

    John Bentley Mays, art writer in the right Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

     Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

    The evening was hosted at Monte Clark Gallery, of the historic Distillery District, who also celebrates its 10th year in Toronto. The gallery currently shows the group exhibition Capture, which includes works by artists like Scott McFarland, Alison Yip, and Jeff Wall.

    Photo:Katherine Porter

    Photo:Katherine Porter

    Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

    Text: Katherine Porter

  • After All

    October 5 – 27, 2011
    Opening: Wednesday, October 5, 7-10 pm
    Steam Whistle Gallery
    255 Bremner Ave
    (just south of the CN Tower)
    Toronto, ON
    416-362-2337 ext.246
    info@steamwhistle.ca
    www.steamwhistle.ca
    Hours: Mon – Thurs 12 – 6, Fri – Sat 11 -6, Sun 11 – 5pm

    After All is a colloquium of micro-disasters and subtle apocalypses, little mistakes and lonely wanderers, absences and distortions, created by eight young visual artists. Both melancholy and acerbic, the works speak to the aftermath of arbitrary and fictitious disasters. Darkness has already descended, and the sensation is one of being unsettled for goo…d, and yet, escape routes and alarm-bells appear to be built-in to each misfortune.

    Anouk Desloges’ work depicts airplane crashes and ship collisions with delicately embroidered threads on cold, transparent plastic. The unfinished lines are simultaneously intimate and dispassionate, leaving us unsure how to feel about these calamities. Clare Samuel’s photographs create an ambivalent relationship between the figure and landscape, and a sense that ‘civilization’ is something long forgotten. Allison Rowe’s recycled quilt pieces constrast bright fabric colours with urgent words: ‘The Time to Try and Convince Them is Over,’ speaks one; and ‘Save Yourself,’ warns another. Alisha Piercy presents large-scale drawings of excessive fountain scenes in unnatural colours, a kind of post-apocalyptic alchemy that is both enticing and intimidating. Leanne Eisen’s ‘Scan’ project pushes technology beyond its limits, tricking, bating and teasing the machine to produce beautiful shapes. The outcomes bear scant relation to the objects they should represent, and instead become sublime errors. April Maciborka’s distorted sea imagery brings to mind tidal waves of biblical proportions, pertinent to recent events in our climate. Candice Purwin’s dense ink drawings illustrate childhood terrors, dark worlds ever present in individual memories. Marcy Chevali’s tiny crocheted figures hang together, yet are isolated from each other, little grey creatures who have lost their way in the storm.

    About Steam Whistle Gallery:Steam Whistle Brewing hosts monthly art exhibitions in their Retail & Hospitality area to showcase local creative talent. Although many exhibitors are established artists, some are showing for the first time. Steam Whistle does not charge rent for their gallery space, nor is a commission earned on any works that are sold. At the close of each show, one piece from the show (of the artist’s choice) is donated to their permanent collection bringing further profile to artists through the thousands of visitors to the brewery annually.

  • SpeakEasy’s 16th Annual Illustration Show

    Hello SpeakEasy friends.  Please join us for the first show of our Fall session.  
     
    Thursday, October 6th, 7 – 11pm 
    The Gladstone Hotel,
    1214 Queen West
    Second Floor Lobby + Studio Room
    Cover: Pay What You Can ($4.00 Donation Suggested) 
    For more information contact: David Brown
    T: 416-533-1374
     
    Participating Artists:
    Ken Turner, Graeme Maitland, Gavin McCarthy, Marta McKenzie, Carmen Mok, Anthony Brennan, Nicole Mandelis, Maihyet Burton, Wilfred Wong, victoR gad, Alexei Vella, Candace Sepulis, Deena Pagliarello, Cristina Gardeazabal, Jacob Rolfe, Daria Smirnova, Lida Lajevardi, Freyda Goodman, Tony Sid, Pamela Marjatta Murray.
     
    Take a peek inside the collective imaginations of 20 talented illustrators whose work features original styles, techniques and media. SpeakEasy has a reputation for showcasing the talent of Toronto’s best illustrators. This colourful event is sure to be a myriad of fun in typical SpeakEasy Fashion.

  • Gallery Hop, Panel discussion

    Panel artists Jed Lind, Sarah Anne Johnson, An Te Liu and Rick Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art (from left to right). Photo:Katherine Porter

    Tiff Bell Lightbox

    Marvel, excitement, and pride filled the voice of Rick Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art magazine, as he presented the theme of last Saturday’s Gallery Hop Panel Discussion: Location3 (Location, Location, Location). As he introduced the Canadian Art Foundation’s 16th annual ‘Hop’, Rhodes suggested that Location be understood both as an indication of progress and as an equation. As the Saturday panel graduates from the unpainted dry wall and exposed electrical of Queen West’s pre-restored Gladstone Hotel to the Tiff-Bell Lightbox, we recognize its progress.

    Panel artists Jed Lind, Sarah Anne Johnson, An Te Liu (from left to right)Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

    By pointing to the mysterious worlds of math and science in a subtle pun, Location3 also refers directly to ideas of place and place-less-ness as an equation that is integral to Art (especially in Canada). On the panel, artists Jed Lind, An Te Liu, and Sarah Anne Johnson spoke to the diversity of ways in which location has informed their work.

    Sarah Anne Johnson’s presentation. Photo:Katherine Porter

    An Te Liu negotiated culturally coded notions of place, non-place and place-ness-less, Johnson spoke of her need to inject bleak documentary-style photography with personality, story, and emotion,

    Sarah Anne Johnson:Ripple, 2011 Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

    and Jed Lind spoke to his fascination with location as a perpetual product of dislocation.

    Jed Lind’s presentation Photo:Katherine Porter

    The result was a (free!) intellectual and visual feast for Canadian art enthusiasts, that promises and exciting event for years to come.

    Photo:Mauricio Contreras-Paredes

    Text by Katherine Porter

  • Paintings by Brian Harvey

    October 12 – November 19, 2011
    Opening: Friday, October 21, 7 – 10 pm
    TELEPHONE BOOTH GALLERY
    3148 Dundas Street West
    Toronto, Ontario M6P 2A1
    (The Junction, Dundas at St. John’s Rd.)
    T: 647.270.7903
    E: sharlene@telephoneboothgallery.ca 
    www.telephoneboothgallery.ca
    Hours: Tues by appt., Wed and Sat 11-6, Thurs and Fri 11-7

    Studies of the commonplace and the typically mundane, Brian Harvey’ssubject matter includes household objects, interior spaces and urban landscapes.  In his current work, Harvey focuses on “remnants” of Toronto’s neighbourhoods.  Having lived a stone’s throw from the gallery, Harvey is very familiar with The Junction in Toronto’s west end, which is featured in several of the paintings.  Harvey is emotionally drawn to buildings which endure and are connected to the past; holdovers which are often ignored or forgotten about altogether.  Through painting, Harvey has the opportunity to examine and study these buildings before they are gone.
    He has been exhibiting extensively for over a decade and has devoted himself to painting full-time since 2007. Brian Harvey lives and works in Toronto.

  • Julia Vandepolder:Backhouse

    October 12 – November 19, 2011
    Opening: Friday, October 21, 7 – 10 pm
    TELEPHONE BOOTH GALLERY
    3148 Dundas Street West
    Toronto, Ontario M6P 2A1
    (The Junction, Dundas at St. John’s Rd.)
    T: 647.270.7903
    E: sharlene@telephoneboothgallery.ca 
    www.telephoneboothgallery.ca
    Hours: Tues by appt., Wed and Sat 11-6, Thurs and Fri 11-7

    Julia Vandepolder’s recent paintings are an investigation of abandoned and collapsing urban and rural architecture. She explores the intricacies and details of these spaces, focusing on the remaining structures which are often extensively patterned through weathering and decay. 

     
    The rich surfaces of her paintings capitalize on the tension between representation and abstraction, inside and outside, what is hidden and what is visible.  Abstract accumulations of line, colour and texture tentatively coalesce into the jagged contour of a beam, a corroded pipe or a pile of bricks.

    This exhibition features selected large scale works on panel as well as small studies and works on Mylar. Julia Vandepolder maintains a full-time studio in Caledon.