Isabelle Hémard at Loop Gallery

An exhibition of new drawings by Isabelle Hémard entitled Fuzzy, furry and cloudy is currently on display at Loop Gallery in Toronto.

In describing her work, Isabelle says:

"An unapologetic, hopeless romantic, I cannot filter what pulses through my heart from bleeding onto my paper. Fuzzy, furry and cloudy shares company with my previous public offerings though the honesty of my emotional self set free by the medium. 


The work is my catharsis from longing, my full blush of lust, my interpretation of the substantial weight of human attachment. I scratch, paint, carve, print, and sew each mood, each experience through and onto my materials…exposing them to myself.  Each dot... every fat or thin line... placement of pastel hues against dark sweeping negative spaces, even selecting each color is thrilling for me.


My personal experiences in love and life are a common bond with mankind. Further elaboration would only serve to diminish the connection between Art and Viewer.


I have been printmaking for 25 years and I love the layering and the manual, ancient component of the technique. I have missed the immediate gratification of drawing and painting so in this collection I have revisited those techniques. Large scale crayon drawings mixed with pastels and paint. My process of selection has been whatever feels good at that precise moment in time. The beauty of my process has been the simple lack of it.  The uncertainty of following my instincts to see where they might take me, not unlike the ‘process’ of falling in Love…


I also discovered that weather patterns accurately translate my feelings.  It has been overcast these days, but there are optimistic pink sunsets on the horizon promising glimpses of sun.  As for ’furry things’? Thank God for them and the fuzzy feelings that make me feel safe…happy…content..."



Toronto-based artist printmaker Isabelle Hémard was born in 1966 in France, and has lived in Canada since the early nineties. She completed her MFA at Diplôme National Supérieur d'Arts Plastiques in France and has exhibited in Canada and internationally. Her work can be found in many private, public and corporate collections.  Her work is available in Toronto through Loop Gallery, Open Studio and Tracey Capes Fine Arts. Isabelle's exhibition will be on display at Loop Gallery until Sunday, August 8, 2010. 

The Bloordale Alternative Art Fair

Join us this Saturday at the Bloordale Alternative Art Fair!  
                  
Loop Gallery is one of 20 Toronto galleries and artists that will be displaying their work at the Bloordale Alternative Art Fair (BAAF) on Saturday July 24, 2010. The fair takes place from 1 to 9 p.m. All artworks will be under $100.

Participating loop members include:

Tanya Cunnington
Tara Cooper
Elizabeth D'Agostino
Audrea DiJulio
Libby Hague
Linda Heffernan
Jane Lowbeer
Ingrid Mida
Suzanne Nacha
Mary Catherine Newcomb
Maureen Paxton
Barbara Rehus
Yvonne Singer

The BAAF is part of The New Bloor Street Festival. Previously known as Big on Bloor, this years' outdoor street festival is being hosted by the Bloordale Business Improvement Area (BIA) rather than being a joint effort between Bloordale and Bloorcourt BIAs.

For the festival, Bloor Street West will be a pedestrian-only zone between Lansdowne Avenue and Dufferin Street. Head to the west end of the festival for the Bloordale Alternative Art Fair, which takes place between Lansdowne and St. Clarens avenues. The BAAF is flanked by Toronto Free Gallery on the west end and Mercer Union on the east.

Coordinated by local curator Carla Garnet, the BAAF will include special events, performances and gallery exhibitions by artists, curators, art dealers and university art teachers. Art School Continues with teachers and students shared exhibitions tables. Curated projects by major commercial and artist run galleries.

Other fun stuff to see and do at the festival:
At Dufferin there will be an Art Court featuring student artwork by York University and The Ontario College of Art and Design students.

The festival will serve as the launch site of the Bloor Magazine, spearheaded by activist/artist Dyan Marie.

At 6:00 p.m. all the booths along Bloor Street will transform into a giant picnic table replete with table cloth, creating a dinner party banquet right out on the street.

The festival also features two live music stages, licensed outdoor patios, a food court, children's activities, and 300 vendors including not-for-profit organizations, as well as artisans selling jewellery, books and clothing.

Review of Loop Show on BlogTO

Loop Gallery's current exhibition of work by Eric Farache and Isabelle Hemard work is featured in BlogTO review by staff writer Matthew Purvis. Read the review with this link.

Eric Farache and Isabelle Hemard at Loop Gallery

Loop Gallery is pleased to announce exhibitions by loop members Eric Farache entitled Manifest Dream and Isabelle Hémard entitled Fuzzy, furry and cloudy.

Eric Farache's exhibition of large format photography is an investigation into the convergence of time, image and memory through richly layered multiple exposures. Farache works with layered images all created in-camera, not digitally. Through exposures, more reference points are created and strung together, creating whole new reference point, based on a very personal visual language.

Throughout Farache's practice, his work has consistently focused on the passage of time - capturing moments in history as well as place.  Eric is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design (1994) in Fine Art and the University of Leeds where he earned his Masters in Fine Arts (2000). He often expresses his ideas in photography, sometimes utilizing the cheap and sensationalistic Holga camera.

Eric Farache's work can also be seen on his website www.ericfarache.com.

Isabelle Hemard’s Fuzzy, furry and cloudy shares company with her previous public offerings.  As an unapologetic, hopeless romantic, she shares what pulses through her heart and onto paper resulting in large scale crayon drawings mixed with pastels and paint. Hemard scratches, paints, carves, prints, and sews each mood and experience through and onto her materials.

Hémard is a Toronto-based printmaker born in France, and has lived in Canada since the early nineties. She completed her MFA at Diplôme National Supérieur d'Arts Plastiques in France and has exhibited in Canada and internationally. Her work can be found in many private, public and corporate collections. Her website is www.belleisabelle.com

Please join the artists in celebrating the opening reception on Saturday, July 17th from 2-5 pm.

Learn more about Eric Farache's work during a Question & Answer Session at loop on Saturday, August 7th at 3pm.

Linda Heffernan at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery

Loop Gallery Member Linda Heffernan is one of three Durham area artists selected by curator Sonya Jones to participate in a show called Transient Nature at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. The featured artists "explore the idea of impermanence in the transition of youth, in memory and possessions, in the transformation of objects and the land and our existence on Earth."

In the exhibition catalogue (cover image shown above), the curator Sonya Jones begins her essay with this quote from The Buddist Review:

"This existence of ours is as transient as Autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is a flash of lightning in the sky. Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain."


Jones describes Heffernan's work as dealing with regret, "conferring a more negative undertone to human memory....Her paintings depict either solutions or predictions of how the Earth will potentially remember humanity....Heffernan feels that all will share a common regret: the memory of what was done, what was not done, and what could have been done to prevent climate change." 

Transient Nature continues at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery until August 29, 2010.

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is located at:
72 Queen Street Civic Centre
Oshawa, Ontario

Portuguese National Holiday parade

Question and Answer Session with Lorene Bourgeois

Question & Answer Session:

Lorène Bourgeois

Saturday, July 10th, 3 PM at loop.

Facilitated by William Huffman, Associate Director, Toronto Arts Council

 

 

Lorène Bourgeois - Born in France, Lorène Bourgeois has been living in Canada since 1984. Trained in Paris, Philadelphia and Halifax (MFA, NSCAD, 1986), her work in drawing, painting, and printmaking, has been exhibited across Canada, France, Korea, Russia, and the United States. She is represented in numerous private and public collections. Lorène Bourgeois gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.  

 

William Huffman - William Huffman is an arts administrator, curator, educator and writer with a history of extensive involvement on both local and international cultural fronts. Huffman is currently the Associate Director of the Toronto Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council Foundation. He has worked with a number of visual arts organizations in Ontario. Recently he was invited by the Art Dealers Association of Canada to curate a presentation of artists from across the country at the G8 and G20 summits in Huntsville and Toronto. 

 

Lorène Bourgeois' PRÈS DU CORPS & Chris Dow's LANDSCAPES exhibitions run until Sunday July 11th.

HOLD ME TIGHT

If you are in Montreal I hope you can come to see my installation, HOLD ME TIGHT / TIENS-MOI TRÈS FORT @ La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse 4296 boulevard saint-laurent montréal qc canada h2w 1z3 www.lacentrale.org www.libbyhague.com/
It was an incredible amount of work and I was happy with it. It's on until July 25th. Libby

Jane LowBeer wins Second Prize at the Print Show

Loop member Jane LowBeer's monotype Light on Little Things won second prize at the Seventh Annual Print show at the John B. Aird Gallery. The opening reception is this Thursday, July 8th from 6-8 pm. The show will continue until July 23, 2010.

John B. Aird Gallery
Macdonald Block
900 Bay Street at Wellesley

Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday 10 am to 6 pm