Last Chance to see JJ lee, Mei Ogden and Ester Pugliese's Show at loop

Closing This Week JJ Lee & Mei Lee Ogden: Sign Languages | Ester Pugliese: Disfluency and Delay JJ Lee & Mei Lee Ogden, "My Little Pony" (2013) Ester Pugliese, "Impromptu Performance: Branson School Chamber Singers and Singing Iceberg" (2013) FINAL DAYS:  Thurs, May 16, 12-5pm.  Fri, May 17,12-5pm.  Sat, May 18, 12-5pm.  Sun, May 19, 1-4pm. Five-year-old Mei was identified as Hard of Hearing at the relatively late age of three and a half; consequently, her spoken language development was delayed. Before turning four, she received her first hearing aids, and heard birds for the first time. Using gouache, glitter paint, wax crayons, watercolour, and pencil crayons, JJ Lee and her daughter explore the space between high and low art, visual and spoken language, mark making and representation, hearing and Deaf, narrative and abstraction. Lee is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University, and has lived and exhibited from coast to coast. She is the recipient of several awards and her work is in both private and public collections. Mei Lee Ogden is currently in Senior Kindergarten. She is also in the second year of a specialized Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. The mixed media works in Pugliese’s Disfluency and Delay consider the human inclination to adjust outward appearances, illustrating this tendency with contrasting examples from nature. Each work presents audio graphs of impromptu performances culled from YouTube videos, layered with audio spectrograms of natural events (glacial collisions, ice fractures, earthquakes), sculptural forms implying air movement, and charted output and capacity data from Ontario's wind farms. Pugliese is a Toronto-based artist who has exhibited her work in Canada and England. She holds a BFA from York University and received the Humber College Board of Governors Achievement Award with her post-graduate certificate in Arts Administration/Cultural Management. Her work is in private and public collections in North America and Europe, including the Donovan Collection at the University of Toronto.

a visit with JJ Lee

Tell us about how you adapt your studio and your practice in order to collaborate with your daughter?

It started with me putting up a big piece of paper to play and experiment on. I knew that my daughter would want to draw on it so I allowed it, especially since my studio is in my house. However, I didn't realize that this was all going to develop into an exhibition! We would wake up on Saturday mornings and paint together in our pyjamas. The biggest challenge for me, especially as an painting professor, was to NOT say anything and allow whatever happened to happen. She had full choice of materials and colours, I did no direction whatsoever. We would draw on top of each other's marks, etc. 

What did she teach you about your work?

She reminded me to play and focus on the process rather than the end result. She taught me to silence the critical voice that is present while working. She reminded me that I love working large scale, loose and full of colour! It was important to me to work with her at this age, before the self-consciousness in drawing developed. It's right before the age that children are preoccupied with realism as the main objective. It's about responsive mark-making, narrative, movement, exploration. Things that I try to teach my students that she has naturally. (And has not been taught out of her in the school system yet!)

What will you carry over into your next body of work?

I plan to continue working large scale mixed media drawings, and allow a more intuitive, playful process to enter the work. In one piece, Fairy Tales, Mei made a giant tree. I like this idea and metaphor. I might continue with that imagery.

What do you listen to while you work?

Mei's singing made up songs and telling stories about what she was drawing.

What would you do if you didn't paint?

Cook! 
Equally creative but more practical!








Thanks for inviting us into your studio JJ!
JJ and Mei's exhibition Sign Languages continues at loop Gallery until May 18th.
You can also see more of JJ's work at 
www.jjlee.ca 

JJ and Mei Lee's Q&A with curator and moderator Carla Garnet

Q&A with moderator Carla Garnet and loop artist JJ Lee

This SUNDAY May 5th at 2PM, loop Gallery welcomes Art Gallery of Peterborough Curator, Carla Garnet, to moderate a discussion with exhibiting artist, JJ Lee. Don't miss it! April 27 - May 19, 2013 JJ Lee & Mei Lee Ogden Sign Languages Five-year-old Mei was identified as Hard of Hearing at the relatively late age of three and a half; consequently, her spoken language development was delayed. Before turning four, she received her first hearing aids, and heard birds for the first time. Using gouache, glitter paint, wax crayons, watercolour, and pencil crayons, JJ Lee and her daughter explore the space between high and low art, visual languages, mark making and representation, process and result, narrative and abstraction. Their marks overlap and interact, blurring these distinctions. This body of work explores the primacy of drawing and Lee’sinterest in art education and creative development in our current system. Lee, (BFA, NSCAD 1992, MFA, York 1999) was born and raised in Halifax and has lived and exhibited from coast to coast. A recipient of several awards, she currently is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University. Mei Lee Ogden was born in Toronto and is currently in Senior Kindergarten. She is also in the second year of a specialized Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. Her favourite colours are pink and purple, and she loves olives and blue cheese. JJand Mei live with James Ogden, a kindergarten teacher in Toronto. The three of them are currently learning American Sign Language. A portion of proceeds from the sale of artwork will be donated to the Canadian Hearing Society.

Opening Saturday April 27: ESTER PUGLIESE & JJ LEE

JJ Lee and Mei Lee Ogden Sign Languages 
and Ester Pugliese Disfluency and Delay

April 27^th – May 19^th, 2013

Opening Reception: Saturday April 27, 2 to 5 p.m.

JJ Lee and Mei Lee Ogden  Sign Languages

My Little Pony, Mixed media on watercolour paper,  60" x 70", 2013

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up” – Pablo Picasso

loop Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition by member artist JJ Lee in collaboration with her daughter, Mei, entitled Sign Languages. 

Five-year-old Mei was identified as Hard of Hearing at the relatively late age of three and a half; consequently, her spoken language development was delayed. Before turning four, she received her first hearing aids, and heard birds for the first time. 

Using gouache, glitter paint, wax crayons, watercolour, and pencil crayons, Lee and her daughter explore the space between high and low art, visual languages, mark making and representation, process and result, narrative and abstraction. Their marks overlap and interact, blurring these distinctions. This body of work explores the primacy of drawing and Lee’s interest in art education and creative development in our current system.

Lee, (BFA, NSCAD 1992, MFA, York 1999) was born and raised in Halifax and has lived and exhibited from coast to coast. A recipient of several awards, she currently is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University. Mei Lee Ogden was born in Toronto and is currently in Senior Kindergarten. She is also in the second year of a specialized Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. Her favourite colours are pink and purple, and she loves olives and blue cheese. JJ and Mei live with James Ogden, a kindergarten teacher in Toronto. The three of them are currently learning American Sign Language.

A portion of proceeds from the sale of artwork will be donated to the Canadian Hearing Society.
Please join JJ Lee for a Q & A, moderated by Carla Garnet on Sunday May 5, at 2 p.m.

Ester Pugliese   Disfluency and Delay

Impromptu Performance: Branson School Chamber Singers and Singing Iceberg,
Acrylic, chalk, conte, carbon, and chalkboard paint on panel, 22" x 30", 2013

loop Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by Loop Gallery member Ester Pugliese entitled Disfluency and Delay. 

The exhibition considers the human inclination for controlling outward appearances, illustrating this tendency with contrasting examples from nature. Each work presents audio graphs of impromptu performances culled from YouTube videos, layered with audio spectrograms of natural events (glacial collisions, ice fractures, earthquakes). Subsequent layers depict sculptural forms implying air movement, coupled with charted output and capacity data from Ontario's wind farms. 

Disfluency is the inability to produce smooth, fluent speech, such as inadvertently repeating words or uttering “um” and “uh” during an impromptu or practiced speech. Delay refers to the repetition of a sound at intervals: delayed sound can diminish with reducing volume, or create a feedback loop becoming endlessly louder. Breaking the cycle to calm the frenetic, mounting energy requires stopping the sound or pausing - taking a breath. 

Ester Pugliese is a Toronto artist who has exhibited her work in Canada and England. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Specialized Honours) from York University in 2001, studied Painting at Leeds University in England and received the Humber College Board of Governors Achievement Award with her post-graduate certificate in Arts Administration/Cultural Management in 2004. Her work can be found in private and public collections in North America and Europe, including the Donovan Collection at the University of Toronto. She has been a member of Loop Gallery since 2009.

Sunday is the last day to see Sung Ja Kim Chisholm: Hope and Libby Hague: Synchromesh

Closing on Sunday April 21 is Sung Ja Kim Chisholm: Hope and Libby Hague: Synchromesh.
The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday, 12 noon to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.

Sung Ja Kim Chisholm Hope, mixed media 2013

Libby Hague, Acting on Impulse, mixed media, 2013

new series

a visit with LIBBY HAGUE

  
What would you say influences your work?

My influences vary from craft, nature, art history, travel, literature, opera, you tube, friends. Different but similar from everyone else in this respect. It amazes me how each individual is an intense point of accumulated  experience, layered onto a unique DNA of inclinations and abilities.  Irreplaceably replaceable. Everything factors in, even the things I wish I could keep out. In this body of work  in particular, I'm recalling the sensations of growing up in Quebec, the Automatistes, the catholic symbols, the landscape, living so far away from downtown in the suburbs.

   
Where do you find inspiration?

My inspiration is in part my process , that is, it grows out  of handling my  materials, trying to find my next steps forward, looking for the satisfaction of surprising myself and making something new. That's why the paper I work with and the tools I pick up are so important to  me.
Last summer I did a residency with fellow Loop member Yael Brotman at Aras Eanna, on a remote Irish island. That inspired me to develop an animation which I've been working on since about Irish history and personal history, leaving home and my father's death. It sounds rather grim but it's also about reconciling with the past and moving forward, finding joy and making peace.

  
 Tell me about your current colour palette?

The colour in this work overlaps memories of stain glass, neon glowing on "the Main", the palette of Borduas and Riopelle, the aurora borealis, and the beautiful colours of a line of acrylic gouache by Turner.  They are so dangerously beautiful and subtle that there is a risk of using them too often straight from the tube and forgetting how to mix colours.   Thankfully it's not a greyscale world  since colour gives so much joy, it's like a visual drug. If you look at  a gorgeous emerald green from Old Holland for instance, you want it to fill your whole field of vision (if you can afford it), or a combination of colours - maybe orange and mauve and think, Wow, I don't want anything else from life.  Besides, something has to balance North Korea.

 What is your process for creating work in your studio?

My process involves having a lot of things at various stages of completion on my walls so that even if it's not moving forward, it's percolating. That's  why I  like your asking for pictures of my studio and why today I'm sending you some images of the same studio taken previously as I was getting ready for other shows. The ones I enthusiastically  sent you last week were of the studio mess that preceded my current show at Loop. I've been so busy I haven't cleaned up for a couple of months. I  stood back with some satisfaction and thought, Wow, Is this a big mess.  I was sharing my inner 6 year old.

Now that your current show has opened, what is your point of departure for the next body of work?

Next is finishing this animation before the patience of the incredibly helpful people at TAIS wears out. I'll also try to work out how to proceed with the work at the Loop show. I'd like to show it somewhere in Montreal because I want to see if they feel and connect to it's source, in part, because I think the feelings and attachments of the Quebec anglo community aren't factored in to the political equation there as much as they should be. Anglos are perhaps too hurt and too reticent about their attachment to Quebec. Since the PQ is so busy creating division I would like to acknowledge the separation but embrace the connection.

Thanks for the visit Libby!

To see more of Libby's work go here: libbyhague.com

Photographs from Sung Ja Kim Chisholm and Libby Hague Artist Tea Party

Loop artists Sung Ja Kim Chisholm Libby Hague and guests at their Artist Tea Party April 14:

Gareth Bate at Lonsdale Gallery

Loop artist Gareth Bate is in "Responsive Space 11", a four-person landscape painting exhibition.
The exhibition runs from April 18 to May 12; the opening reception is Saturday April 20 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Lonsdale Gallery.

http://www.lonsdalegallery.com

Gareth Bate, Lament: North Lake Field, Kings County, Prince Edward Island, 48 x 72 inches

Gareth Bate, Lament: North Lake Field, Kings County, Prince Edward Island, 48 x 72 inches

Gareth Bate, Lament: North Lake Field, Kings County, Prince Edward Island, 48 x 72 inches

Gareth Bate, Lament: North Lake Field, Kings County, Prince Edward Island, 48 x 72 inches

Gareth Bate, Lament: North Lake Field, Kings County, Prince Edward Island, 48 x 72 inches

This Sunday April 14: Artist Tea Party with Sung Ja Kim Chisholm & Libby Hague

Please join artists Sung Ja Kim Chisholm and Libby Hague this Sunday April 14 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the gallery.