Saturday, May 29, 2010

Rochelle Rubinstein at Loop Gallery



Rochelle Rubinstein is currently exhibiting at Loop Gallery in a show entitled SHAFT.

A follow up to last year’s homage to Robert Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic, SHAFT expands upon Rubinstein’s interest in strong narrative themes conveyed within an abstract, formal language.  These larger wood panels, printed, painted and carved with subtle detail in a bold manner, depict the shaft as a pit, a conduit, passageway, a well, but also as a barb, a blow, a wound, a dig.

A series of columns, sheathed in printed, painted and quilted fabric and paper, serve as counterpoints to the wood panels. These are at once shafts as spears or staffs, or shafts of light, beams, radiance and darkness, life and death.


SHAFT will be exhibited concurrently with STILL LIFE ON EARTH, a collaborative installation with Libby Hague, at Mon Ton Window at 402 College Street.

Rochelle Rubinstein is a Toronto-based artist whose work has been exhibited in diverse venues worldwide and can be found in public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.  As a community arts facilitator, her workshops and projects with groups such as battered women, people with eating disorders, and health workers, are based upon methods that are central to her own artistic practice: drawing, printmaking, painting, sewing and bookmaking.

SHAFT will be on display until June 13, 2010.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Libby Hague at Loop Gallery



 Libby Hague is currently showing her work at Loop Gallery in an exhibition entitled SAFETY NET.

"We always try to push our ideas a bit further. This exhibition is my opportunity to show results from some of this year's experiments which have shifted my painting and prints into sculptural hybrids."

This exhibition features The trans-atlantic shift of the Elliott plaid, a deconstructed riff on Hague's ancestral tartan with an interjected grove of birch trees, and Safety net, designed to retain things of value and connected to a cluster of strangely optimistic creation experiments.  A selection of landscape paintings with sculptural complications, includes Shotgun marriage, Abracadabra - and it did, Tender + Tight and Heaven does a backbend.  

Hague's work will be shown concurrently with works by Rochelle Rubinstein at Loop and in Still life on earth at the Mon Ton Window, 402 College St. Toronto.

Libby Hague (Toronto, Ontario) is a visual artist who works primarily in print installation. Her recent exhibitions include being natural at the Durham Art Gallery and One step at a time at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She is featured in the British book, Installations & Experimental Printmaking by Alexia Tala and won the 2009 Open Studio National Printmaking Award. She is represented in many public collections including the Donovan Collection at University of Toronto.

Libby's work will be on display at Loop Gallery until June 13, 2010.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Libby Hague and Rochelle Rubinstein

Loop Gallery is pleased to announce exhibitions by Loop members Libby Hague entitled SAFETY NET and Rochelle Rubinstein entitled SHAFT.

Libby Hague

Libby Hague's exhibition called SAFETY NET is "The trans-atlantic shift of the Elliott plaid", a deconstructed riff on Hague's ancestral tartan with an interjected grove of birch trees, and Safety net, designed to retain things of value and connected to a cluster of strangely optimistic creation experiments. A selection of landscape paintings with sculptural complications, includes Shotgun marriage, Abracadabra - and it did, Tender + Tight and Heaven does a backbend.

Libby Hague  is a Toronto-based visual artist who works primarily in print installation. Her recent exhibitions include being natural at the Durham Art Gallery and One step at a time at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She is featured in the British book, Installations & Experimental Printmaking by Alexia Tala and won the 2009 Open Studio National Printmaking Award. She is represented in many public collections including the Donovan Collection at U of T.


Rochelle Rubinstein

Rochelle Rubinstein’s exhibition SHAFT expands upon Rubinstein’s interest in strong narrative themes conveyed within an abstract, formal language.  These larger wood panels, printed, painted and carved with subtle detail in a bold manner, depict the shaft as a pit, a conduit, passageway, a well, but also as a barb, a blow, a wound, a dig.  A series of columns, sheathed in printed, painted and quilted fabric and paper, serve as counterpoints to the wood panels. These are at once shafts as spears or staffs, or shafts of light, beams, radiance and darkness, life and death, etc.

Rochelle Rubinstein is a Toronto-based artist whose work has been exhibited in diverse venues worldwide and can be found in public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.  As a community arts facilitator, her workshops and projects with groups such as battered women are based upon methods that are central to her own artistic practice.

SAFETY NET and SHAFT will be exhibited concurrently with STILL LIFE ON EARTH, a collaborative installation by Libby Hague and Rochelle Rubinstein, at Mon Ton Window at 402 College Street.                                        


Libby Hague's and Rochelle Rubinstein's exhibitions will be at Loop Gallery from May 22 - June 13, 2010.


Please join the artists in celebrating the opening reception on Sunday, May 23rd from 2-4 pm.

Learn more about Libby Hague and Rochelle Rubinstein's work during a Question & Answer Session at loop on Sunday, June 6th at 3pm. Moderated by Pat Macaulay, Head, Visual Art, Harbourfront Centre, followed by Afternoon Tea at 402 College Street.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Ingrid Mida at LA Design


My sculpture What Lies Beneath is currently in the windows of LA Design at 788 King Street West.


What Lies Beneath is a sculpture that presents the viewer with the opportunity to see the undergarments worn by an 18th century woman. This substructure of chemise, corset and panier would have been worn under a silk or brocade gown. By creating these garments in mosquito mesh,  I am adding an allusion to the protective barrier that such garments created around the wearer. (And coming from Canada, where mosquitos are prevalent, there is a tongue in cheek Canadian reference!) Spanning nearly four feet across, the panier made it awkward to move or sit. Plus one could not possibly get dressed without assistance which I learned when I tried the ensemble on to photograph myself wearing it (which is another story altogether!).

Also on display at LA Design are my paper corset series as well as several works from my textile series Revolutionary Fashion.

Ingrid Mida at LA Design
788 King Street West, Toronto
King just west of Bathurst on the north side (under Art Metropole)

Friday, May 14, 2010

Last Chance to see Lanny Shereck's and Yvonne Singer's Exhibitions

This weekend is your last chance to see the current exhibitions at Loop Gallery:

   Yvonne Singer Gone Missing
 

    Lanny Shereck  In Between  


          
Gallery hours this weekend are:
Friday, May 14, 1-5pm
Saturday, May 15, 1-5pm
Sunday, May 16, 1-4pm

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Art School (Dismissed)

Loop Members Yael Brotman and Tara Cooper are among a group of art school instructors showing at this weekend's exhibition Art School (Dismissed) at The (decommissioned) Shaw Street School, 180 Shaw Street, Toronto. This exhibition was curated by Heather Nicol.

Friday, May 14th to Sunday, May 16th
Noon to 8 pm daily

For further information visit www.artschooldismissed.com.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Video of Question and Answer Session with Yvonne Singer and Lanny Shereck

If you missed Saturday's Question and Answer session with Yvonne Singer and Lanny Shereck faciliated by William Huffman and Ronni Rosenberg at Loop Gallery, don't despair. Click on this LINK to see a clip filmed by Ester Pugliese.

Lanny Shereck's In Between & Yvonne Singer's Gone Missing exhibitions run until Sunday, May 16th.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Question and Answer Session with Lanny Shereck and Yvvonne Singer

Join us for a Question & Answer session at Loop Gallery this Saturday, May 8th at 3pm.    

Question & Answer Session:
Lanny Shereck & Yvonne Singer
Saturday, May 8th, 3 PM
Moderated by William Huffman and Ronni Rosenberg.
 
William Huffman is an arts administrator, curator and educator. He is currently the Associate Director of the Toronto Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council Foundation. He holds teaching positions with the University of Toronto, Fanshawe College and Toronto School of Art. His past curatorial initiatives include several traveling exhibitions: Aurora: A Survey of New Media Work from Finland (Canada/USA); Head Frame for the 2001 Biennale di Venezia (Italy); Stephen Andrews: the 1st part of the 2nd half (France/Italy/Canada); and traductions (Montréal). Huffman was selected by the Ambassade de France au Canada to curate La Grande Expérience for Toronto's inaugural Nuit Blanche and the Mixage: Marseille-Toronto exchange initiative.

Ronni Rosenberg has had a practice in art, design and architecture. She is currently Associate Dean at Sheridan College in the School of Animation Arts and Design where she manages joint programs with University of Toronto Mississauga and performing arts. Rosenberg holds a BA in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto, an MFA in Printmaking and Photography from the Pratt Institute, and a Master of Architecture from State University of New York at Buffalo.

Yvonne Singer is a practicing artist with an active national and international exhibition record.  Professor Singer is tenured faculty in the Department of Visual Arts, York University and was Graduate Program Director in Visual Arts from 2003-2009. She is currently on sabbatical.

Lanny Shereck  is an artist and art teacher working in acrylic and oil paint and photographic collage to create images of urban life.  Shereck has been a member of Loop for 3 years and is represented by The Fran Hill Gallery in Toronto. Shereck has been an art educator for 30 years.

Lanny Shereck's In Between & Yvonne Singer's Gone Missing exhibitions run until Sunday, May 16th.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

A Conversation with Yvonne Singer

Yvonne Singer's exhibition Gone Missing is currently showing at Loop Gallery. In our conversation, I attempted to define the essence of her current exhibit as well as find a little bit about her life as an artist.


Ingrid: What is it about neon that appeals to you?
Yvonne: I am attracted to the ephemereal nature of neon...it is there but not there. Like the video component of 'gone missing', the work is dependant on electrical currents and needs to be turned on to be activated.I also like the tension between the public/private aspect of neon text. It is familiar to us as signage and when displaced from its usual function, it has expressive powers, visually and conceptually.

Ingrid: Are there any special challenges to working with neon? 
Yvonne: Yes. Neon is neon gas in glass tubing and therefore fragile. It requires someone who is a higly skilled fabricator with special expertise in working with neon. I am fortunate to work with Orest Tatryn, who is an artist himself and understands the medium of neon as well as the artistic process. The other challenge with neon is the installation since it requires wires,electrodes, transformers which become part of the visual information that needs to be considered when neon is installed.


Ingrid: Clearly text is an important component of your work. How do you get to the essence of the message in order to create it in neon? 
Yvonne: Using text is like writing a play script and often the text I use is conversational and colloquial so I will speak the words either silently to myself or out loud or both.. Sometimes I will solicit other opinions. In the case of 'gone missing'. I wanted the sentences to suggest a narrative that was provocative; with specific details and yet open to interpretation. An important element with text is the viewer's complicity; in other words, the viewer takes on the text when they read it..it becomes theirs... they are saying it and internalizing it as they read it and hear it internally.


Ingrid: Can you explain your intention behind the juxtaposition of the video piece with the painting (which looks like a painting of Venice perhaps)?
Yvonne: The video is a quickly flashing, fast-paced sequence of images from my recent trip to Paris, Venice, Berlin, London. It was my art tour. The painting juxtaposes old and new ways of recording travel experiences. The 18th-19th century style painting of Venice references the kind of art tour people used to do and the way in which travelers recorded their experiences. I am contrasting the handmade with the digital; the public with the private again. There is no judgement here. I am simply presenting what is and suggesting that something is always lost or missing with our experience of  both old and new technologies and with the experience of travel and being a tourist. 
By way of background, in 1630 Venice experienced an unusually devastating outbreak of the plague. As a votive offering for the city's deliverance from the pestilence, the Republic of Venice vowed to build and dedicate a church to Our Lady of Health (or of Deliverance, Italian: Salute). The church was designed in the then fashionable Palladian style by Baldassare Longhena, a pupil of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio, and construction began in 1631. Most of the objects of art housed in the church bear references to the Black Death.    The dome of the Salute was an important addition to the Venice skyline and soon became emblematic of the city, inspiring artists like Canaletto, J. M. W. Turner, John Singer Sargent and Francesco Guardi.

Ingrid: What is on the video?
Yvonne: The photos on the video are a chronological record of my trip to Paris for the Pompidou, Venice for the bieannle, Berlin for Holocaust monuments, London to the Frieze art fair and the Tate Modern. These are examples of only some of the sites on the video. They are presented as a rapidly flashing slide show. I used the camera as an extension of my looking. 

Ingrid: What do you want the viewer to feel when they see this work? 
Yvonne: The rapidly flashing images are hynotic and the rhythmic pulsing of the images hold the viewer's attention. For many, the images of the iconic city sites and museums are familiar. I want viewers to experience hectic pace of travel with the accompanying overload of information that occurs when we tour multilpe cities and I hope that it references their own memories of travel and resonates for them.



Ingrid: What drives you to succeed/create? 
Yvonne: It's about a way of seeing and thinking about the world around me...and maybe it is also just a habit of producing art but I get ideas which need to be realized in  material form. I get an idea for a work; feel it is stupid and embarassing but it niggles at me until I decide it is time to make the work...then I worry about how much it will cost and is it worth the expense but I go ahead anyway...this is the cycle that keep repeating before each installation. Of course, the excitement of installing the work in the gallery and watching my idea coming together as it is realized visually is addictive and also keeps me producing.

Ingrid: What artist living or dead would you most like to have a conversation with?  What question would you ask them? 
Yvonne: Louise Bourgeois..but she has already revealed so much in her work and writings. I would ask her about juggling family and the demands of a high profile career


Ingrid: Is there an artwork/artist that makes you really angry?
Yvonne: Marcel Duchamp, Etant donnés


Ingrid: Which are the most common words you use to describe (1) work you like and (2) work you dislike?
Yvonne: I can't say....there are works I like initially then forget them and there are works I dislike but stay with me...liking and disliking works of art is not static for me but changes...there are always works that continue to interest me and others that don't but emotions of like and dislike are quick impressions can change.

Ingrid: Who is your best critic? 
Yvonne: I am my own harshest critic.

Ingrid: What colours are you drawn to? 
Yvonne: black and grey


Ingrid: If you were not an artist, what would you do? 
Yvonne: Go crazy.

Ingrid: You feel happiest when? 
Yvonne: My domestic life and work life are in balance.

Ingrid: Do you have any regrets?
Yvonne: That I didn't go to art school in England in the 70s and that I didn't begin studying art when I was growing up.

Ingrid: How would you like to be remembered? 
Yvonne: I would like to be remembered as an artist and educator whose work and ideas influenced people.

Ingrid: How do you indulge yourself?
Yvonne: By cooking and going to interesting restaurants.

Ingrid: Fill in the blank - I wish I could.....
Yvonne: Live forever.

Ingrid: What book are you currently reading?
Yvonne: I just finished The Book of Negoes, a novel by Lawrence Hill( compelling fiction) and Enemies of the People by Kati Marton (memoir of her family).

Ingrid: What's next for you? 
Yvonne: Next is another neon work for the convenience gallery in Toronto in December 2010 and the end of my sabbatical.

Yvonne Singer's exhibition continues until Sunday, May 16th. Please join Yvonne this Saturday, May 8th at 3 pm for a Question and Answer session facilitated by William Huffman.