Sunday, January 26, 2014

New Exhibitions by Gareth Bate and Linda Hefferman




 February 1 – 23, 2014 Reception: Saturday, February 1, 2014, 2-5PM 

Gareth Bate     Cosmos and Anarchy 

Gareth Bate's Cosmos and Anarchy series consists of small abstracted paintings depicting an imagined cosmos combined with video stills from recent riots in London, Athens, Madrid, Cairo, and Tehran. These twelve inch-square, densely worked paintings depict our current global turmoil playing out as part of cosmic drama. Around the world people are rising up in an effort to overthrow tyrannical governments. The worry is always what will replace them? 
The cosmos, as well as metaphors of historical time, have been central themes in Gareth's work for several years, Most significantly, cosmic and historical themes run through his ongoing Jewel Net of Indra installation. He has been working on this massive painting-based installation for two and half years. It now includes 1600 miniature painted historical figures on mirrors. 


Linda Heffernan    Adaptation 

Adaptation continues Linda Heffernan's exploration of the potential ramifications of extreme climate change and the opposing points of view that make a considered global response so challenging. The textured semi-abstract paintings in this exhibit use satellite views of major cities and snippets of media commentary as a jumping off point to an imagined landscape. 
Linda Heffernan is a Whitby-based artist exploring themes of consumer capitalism and bureaucracy in an ever more interconnected global economy. She has a BFA from OCAD University and her work is included in a number of private and public collections in Canada. Linda Heffernan has exhibited her work in a number of galleries in Toronto's Queen West district as well as Whitby's Station Gallery and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. 

 Image Description:

Gareth Bate  -  Cairo, acrylic on wood, Oct. 2011 - Jan. 2013 
Linda Hefferman  -  A Matter of Priority, acrylic on canvas, 2012 

loop Thanks 
AUDAXlaw Sumac.com 
loop Gallery 

1273 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6J 1X8 (3 doors west of Dovercourt). 
Gallery Hours: Wed - Sat 12 to 5 pm, and Sun 1 to 4pm. Artist is in attendance on Sundays and for the reception. 
For more information please contact the gallery director at 416-516-2581 or visit: www.loopgallery.ca 

Wednesday, January 22, 2014









a visit with Sheryl Dudley


What was the seed that initiated the working process for this new body of work? 

I had a very different body of work already under way when I recognized that our unexpected decision to move presented an opportunity I might not have again.


I left the work intended for my upcoming exhibition and turned to photographing hoards of small objects acquired over the years and others that had been passed-down over a few generations. Many of the objects were long forgotten but the documenting and packing reminded of our histories, and that they were preserved for the narratives they contain. I have found some evidence of different cultural identities merging (including a few rifts that go back generations) and several items from the ‘old country’ as well as a collection of whimsical items that include an antique cloth doll, a vintage 1950’s train set, many plastic figurines: Popeye & Olive Oyl, a blue Power Ranger, G.I. Joe, a cowboy on a horse, many buttons and badges and a miniature gumball machine I treasure (“Homie”), to name only a few. In addition there is a whole box of antique mannequin hands (not a matching pair in the lot), mountains of photographs dating from the 1860’s to the present, old board games, a big bag of orthodontic plaster casts and a bag full of odd stainless steel instruments.  
 The list goes on…..


 
 
What lens were you looking through when you envisioned the work for this new exhibition?

 Depending on what I was sorting through I felt I was looking through the lens of earlier generations and at the same time, the not-so-distant past and present where the material accumulation was greater. Interestingly my ‘lens’ had nothing to do with aesthetics. I felt that I began to see the objects from another’s eye and that sensation aroused curiosity of a different time, without the weight of nostalgia.

 


Did this work push you into new territories in terms of techniques or materials?


This work was completely unexpected. There was no strategy, process or technique in mind. I intended to simply make a digital record of the objects and then dump everything at the Goodwill and the city waste depot on Commissioners Street. Some of the objects are evidence of past events, others remain a mystery (maybe they represent places or incidents the elders didn’t want to talk about). Now that I have done all this work I am less inclined to part with any of them.

The images I ended up with were created by a multi-layered, ad-hoc process. They started out as black & white and color photographs.  When I ran across a set of hole punches in an old box of art materials I started perforating the photos.  My thoughts tend to bounce all around in search of connections so sifting through past history led me to consider the nuances of memory - the distortions and drop-outs that occur over time.  That thought seemed to tie-in with the punched holes. (Now that I think of it, maybe also with my last series on the arctic – the paintings I did on perforated industrial aluminum) Next I made inkjet prints of the punched photos and started ‘drawing’ over them with an eraser and a knife. (odd choice of ‘media’). I didn’t have any particular form in mind but I used them as ‘subtractive’ techniques to modulate tones, scrape away and incise areas. I later added colored conte to create ‘auras’ and emphasis.

 




















 
What is the “constant” that saw you through this process from start to finish?

So many questions about the past remain. Every family has them. This particular move made me stop and examine things in a way that I hadn’t before. There is definitely a compulsive aspect to the work. When I lay them all out I can see different personalities in some groupings of objects – maybe subtle evidence of traits that get passed down. My parents were so young when I arrived that I knew three of my great-grandparents, some of my great-great aunts and uncles, and I know the stories of the great-great-greats. Being the first child of only children I grew up hearing more about the past than most. I was really drawn into this project but am abandoning it for the time being so I can find my way back to that other series.


Thanks for the studio sneak peek Sheryl!

Sheryl's exhibition Between Here and There runs until January 26th at Loop Gallery


 



Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Last Chance - Sheryl Dudley and Mary Catherine Newcomb's Loop Exhibit Final Days January 22nd - 26th 2014



Final Days: January 22nd to 26th , 2014


Sheryl Dudley - Between Here and There

A new mixed media installation by Dudley documents unsettling moments in the space between places. Her photographs and works on paper catalogue a personal trove of mementos, talismans, and ancestral objects. Wrapping and unwrapping countless objects during a recent move inspired this series of intimate mixed-media drawings. They came about in a circuitous way beginning with a remembered motif from the artist's family history. The objects depicted trace her lineage and its fracture - but most of all, the erosion of memory and material things over time.

Dudley’s paintings and photographs have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Canada. Her work can be found in many private collections on both sides of the border.

Mary Catherine Newcomb - the Woods

In the Woods, Newcomb presents a small series of sculptures as platforms for presenting and contemplating natural material that she harvested in the wild and/or cultivated. the Woods refers to a small plot of land that has been in her family for several generations - a  repository of memory and crucible for mythologies. A return to the woods (and the lake) in the summer of 2013 inspired this work that contemplates layers of personal meaning apprehended in details of a familiar landscape and examines a relationship between art and nature.

Newcomb’s work has been widely exhibited both here and abroad and has garnered numerous grants and awards. She currently resides in Kitchener, Ontario and teaches in the Visual and Creative Arts program at Sheridan College.