Observations
Writing on exhibitions, artworks, and artists whose work has informed my thinking. These posts are responses to encounters with contemporary art and an extension of the same attentive looking that informs my studio practice.
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NetherMind – “Elegy”
This fall, contrails converge on yet another COP where promises are sure to be broken, and targets missed. We’ve learned that there is no longer any way to keep global warming under 1.5 C. Extinctions are increasing, habitats are shrinking. The exhibition by the artists’ collective NetherMind at Saint Anne’s Anglican church “…mourns the destruction of…
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Making Magic at Art Toronto
Part of the fun in seeing art up close is figuring out how it’s been made: an experience of discovery that is easily overlooked in the online world. I’ve selected just a few examples of work from the Art Toronto show that surprised me with an “oh… that’s how it works” revelation: Three works by Kal…
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Lyla Rye at General Hardware Contemporary
Lyla Rye’s art practice invites us to be aware of how we see what we see. Her work encourages us to be active in our looking, to become conscious that perception is not passive, to realize that we actually construct what we see. Rye’s show at General Hardware Contemporary is crisp and sleek. The show…
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Christian Eckart at General Hardware
On a grey October day, colour was mostly drained from the city as it prepared for winter hibernation. How glorious it was then, to come upon Christian Eckart’s work at General Hardware Contemporary. The paintings are so bright, so saturated, that they illuminate the walls and ceiling with reflected colour. Three large artworks depict forest…
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Stefan Berg: Counterpoint at United Contemporary
“I believe all painting is about looking” says Stefan Berg. His show at United Contemporary finds poetry in the ordinary and discovers vivid visual experiences in commonplace subjects. At first glance, his paintings and linocuts may appear to be straight-forward depictions of gardens, architecture and interiors. But slow down. Give them time, and they’ll reveal…
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Graham Gillmore At General Hardware Contemporary
Waking up, there’s a fleeting moment when the dream world is receding but still vivid: the moment just before logic is re-asserted and the internal monologue of wakefulness fully engages. Graham Gillmore’s recent paintings remind me of that peculiar half-conscious state of mind. A state of confusion but also of unlimited potential. As in an…
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Eli Langer at Clint Roenisch
Just before this show was to open, Toronto shut down. We suddenly became familiar with living in a mode of social distancing. So now Eli Langer’s carefully arranged work sits in an empty, locked space. We have only photos, which we look at as through windows, back into the happy, noontime light of those free-mobility days……
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Hugh Alcock: In the Dusk of the Woods / Gallery 1313
‘They can’t see the forest for the trees’ is an expression applied to someone who can’t understand the whole because they’re too engrossed in the parts. This conventional wisdom elevates the understanding of patterns over the focus on particulars. Hugh Alcock’s work suggests the opposite: he argues for the virtue of detail. In his show…
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Joe Fleming at General Hardware Contemporary
It’s an evocative title. Silver Harley conjures the sinewy curves of chromed pipes and machinery; the near sub-sonic growl of a motorcycle engine. It’s a title that works well for this show of unusual paintings. Installation view of Joe Fleming, Silver Harley at General Hardware Contemporary. Photo: Laura Findlay Maybe ‘paintings’ is too narrow a category. Although they conform to…