Category: Uncategorized

October 5 – 16, 2011  
Opening: Saturday, October 8,  2 – 5 pm
GALLERY 1313
1313 QUEEN STREET WEST,
TORONTO, ON M6K 1K8
T: 416 – 536-6778
E mail: director@g1313.org
www.gallery13131.org
Hours: Wed – Sun 1- 6

“Currently my medium of choice is encaustic painting. I create paintings that reflect my way of seeing nature. The sculptural and transparent qualities of encaustic capture perfectly my impression of landscape. Depicted in my paintings are dramatic landscapes defined and described by light and the effect light has on transforming what we see around us. The abstract images describe the vibrant colours and texture often overlooked as we interact with our environment. What emerges from my compositions are the elements of nature that regardless of the time of day, night or season reveal the remarkable splendour of nature at work.” – wrote the artist.

 “David in his mother’s arms”,  from the book Invisible No More: A  Photographic Chronicle of the Lives of People with Intellectual Disabilties. ©Vincenzo Pietropaolo

October 1 – 30, 2011
VERNISSAGE  AS PART OF SCOTIA BANK NUI BLANCHE
OCTOBER 1 : 7 pm-7 am October 2.
Carlton Cinema Gallery,
20 Carlton Street (at Yonge)
Toronto, ON
http://www.abilitiesartsfestival.org
T: 1-888-844-9991 ext.115
Gallery Hours: 1 – 11 pm

I See What You Mean is an interactive exhibit which juxtaposes a series of portraits by one of Canada’s most acclaimed documentary photographers, Vincenzo Pietropaolo, with portraits and self-portraits by gallery visitors. In addition to contributions of the general public, Abilities Arts Festivals will engage and elicit the participation of communities portrayed by Pietropaolo in his most recent series, Invisible No More, a photographic chronicle of people with intellectual disabilities commissioned by the canadian Association for Community Living.

 Contributions by exhibit visitors will enrich, inform and engage with the photographic conversation initiated by Pietropaolo.  Gallery visitors will be supplied with tools and resources to generate their own portraits and self-portraits through Polaroid prints, digital and webcam photography, and pencil sketches will which will then be pinned/ projected onto the walls, ceiling and floor of the gallery

 Vincenzo Pietropaolo is a documentary photographer based in Toronto. Best known for his empathetic social documentary photo essays, he has completed major projects on Italian immigrant life in Canada, religious street rituals, migrant farm workers, health care, political protest, the labour movement, immigrant gardens, urban social issues, and architecture to name a few.

Characterized by a simple and direct approach, Pietropaolo’s photography typically reveals individuals and groups overlooked by history books.  His work has appeared nationally and internationally as feature exhibits, in books and magazines, on television, and in the collections of the National Archives of Canada, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Invisible No More is a photographic chronicle of people with intellectual disabilities, those withDown syndrome, autism, or who are “otherwise-abled.” This portrait is a narrative and celebration of individuals who might live down the street from us, but we hardly know; girls and boys, men and women who by their “different” behavior and physical looks make us feel uncomfortable. Individuals who, in Pieropaolo’s words, “make raindrops, dance with wheelchairs, walk in the park, perform piano concerts, work for a living, and navigate through all the traffic ahead

Abilities Arts Festival is a registered charitable organization. For almost ten years, Abilities Arts Festival has been a leader and catalyst bringing together artists with disabilities and a diverse public through a wide range of performance, media and visual arts events. Since 2003, it has employed hundreds of professional artists with disabilities, welcomed audiences in the tens of thousands (collectively) and inspired the next generation of artists through its youth programs.

“The Molten Word,” Sam Mogelonsky, Bronze, 2011

A Nuit Blanche Event
September 28 – October 2, 2011
Open all night Saturday, October 1, 7 pm=7 am, October 2
THE RED HEAD GALLERY
401 Richmond St. W., Suite 115.
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T:  416 504-5654.
Email: art@redheadgallery.org.
www.redheadgallery.org.
Hours: Wed – Sa. 12 – 5 pm

For the sixth year in a row, The Red Head Gallery is presenting INSOMNIA.

This always unique, always surprising group show, is not to be missed.

Over 40 amazing artists from across Canada responded to our call, all reflecting on the theme of insomnia.

September 9  – December 10, 2011
Opening:Friday, September 9, 8-10pm.
YYZ Artists’ Outlet
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 140
T: 416-598-4546
yyzartistsoutlet.org
yyzbooks.com
Hours: Tues – Sat 11 a.m. to 5 p.m

Foolproof Four: Superheroes of the Forest Floor is an installation of four large ceramic sculptures of mushrooms, each sitting on its own plinth. On the walls are four different posters of blank, speech bubble templates: downloadable, freeware graphic tools for comic book designers.  Around the base of each mushroom and on the floor are over 8000 custom-made buttons. There are three sets of buttons. One illustrates superhero logos for each of the mushrooms and another features empty speech bubbles in four different styles taken from comic book templates. The third set suggests possible «superpowers» of the Four with terms taken from scientific descriptions of the life-cycle of mushrooms: Autodeliquescence, Telemorph, Spore Liberation and Cytoplasmic Fusion. Perhaps Shaggy Mane with its curious character of autodeliquescence (self-digestion) is a force to be reckoned with.  And surely they have the united power of spore liberation. The buttons themselves look like mushrooms multiplying and popping up from the floor, spreading and intermingling with the buttons of the other mushrooms. Viewers are invited to take a button, allowing the project to travel spore-like outside of the gallery to other locations.

ANNIE DUNNING received an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from Mount Allison University and a MFA from the University of Guelph. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and abroad in Japan, Germany and the United States. Dunning’s practice includes collaborative projects, teaching, artist residencies and lectures and has been funded by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Dana Tosic, Everyday Ephemera 3, screenprint, 38”x50”, 2010.

September 15 – October 22, 2011
Open Studio Gallery
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto ON,  M5V 3A8
T/F: 416-504-8238
E-mail: sara@openstudio.on.ca
W: http://www.openstudio.on.ca 

Focusing on fleeting, intimate, moments, Dana Tosic’s Everyday Ephemera explores notions of time and memory, and the body’s potential to infer a narrative through movement. The series reveals moments in which something is happening, despite initial appearances of nothing going on—the body engages in quotidian and often solitary motions: dressing and undressing, tying shoes, peeling fruit, sewing, knitting, eating. These are learned, automatic movements that often provoke reflection and introspection, allowing the mind to be simultaneously absorbed and disengaged. Although the images reflect intimate moments not intended to be shared, the presentation draws attention to their performative nature.

The screenprinted images are based on composites of a series of 360° 3D scans of the artist’s body performing various tasks. The movements have been broken down into stages of motion; each stage was scanned individually and subsequently combined to form a single image using 3D modeling software. As recordings of the stages of motion, plotting the passage of time through human locomotion, the images function as a digital trace of something that took place during the unspecified past. What is left is a momentary glimpse of where the body was and a suggestion of what it was doing at an unspecified moment in the past. In this way, traces of memories of the body, and the motions it employed, are left on the paper. As pointed out by J. Eric Steenbergen in the accompanying essay, the work also raises questions about surveillance and observation, and how new technologies in these areas affect our self-representation.