Thursday, April 24, 2014

Don't Miss New Exhibitions by Moira Clark and Yvonne Singer


April 26- May 18, 2014 Reception: Saturday, April 26, 2014, 2-5PM


Moira Clark Colour Complex

 Colour Complex debuts new abstract paintings which build on Clark’s longstanding fascination with colour harmonics, composition, and the formal elements of painting. These large and vital paintings transform varied representational references into amorphous puzzle pieces squeezed together and fine-tuned to produce paintings that are simultaneously tense and harmonious.
Clark was born, lives and works in Toronto. She was included in the exhibitions Art School {Dismissed} curated by Heather Nicol; and The C Word, curated by Richard Mongiat. She was a founding member of loop Gallery, and has also been represented in Toronto by XEXE Gallery/KWT Contemporary. Her work was granted a retrospective exhibit at the Cambridge Galleries in Preston, and was also selected for inclusion in the 2008 Magenta publication Carte Blanche Vol. 2: Painting 

April 26- May 18, 2014 Reception: Saturday, April 26, 2014, 2-5PM 


Yvonne Singer just in time (or hanging by a thread)


Just in time (or hanging by a thread) follows Singer’s ongoing exploration of the cultural nuances and sculptural qualities of everyday language. The installation features 24 hourglasses, a metronome, and a blue neon text reading: "so I watched him take his last breath and I was relieved. I needed the certainty that he was gone". Placed alongside signifiers of the demarcation of time, this enigmatic passage about loss functions as both text and object.
Singer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts, and the former Graduate Program Director in visual arts at York University. Her community activities have included board membership on the Toronto Arts Council, C Magazine and the Koffler Centre for the Arts. Recent exhibitions include The Game of Life;1 step forward, 10 steps backwards, art sourterrain and Nuit Blanche Montreal; jst wrds at the Cambridge Galleries; and I do, I undo, I redo, at Critical Mass, Port Hope. 

Left image: Selvedge( detail), oil on canvas, 36" x 48", 2014
Right image: Hourglass, 2014


loop Thanks
AUDAXlaw Sumac.com 

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Last Chance to see the current shows at loop


Yael Brotman: Scaffolding | Martha Eleen: My Space

Trestle Brotman
Yael Brotman, "Trestle", etching on Kurotani and Taiwanese papers, foamcore, acrylic, adhesive 22”H x 30” W x 18”D, 2013
Eleen Untitled(My Space)
Martha Eleen, "Felt", oil on wood, 20" x 20", 2014
FINAL DAYS: 
Thurs, April 17, 12-5pm. 
Fri, April 18, 12-5pm. 
Sat, April 19, 12-5pm. 
Sun, April 20, 1-4pm.

Yael Brotman - "Scaffolding"

The print sculptures in Yael Brotman’s current body of work look at publicly accessible structures such as bridges, boardwalks, and piers. The artist uses these mediating loci to examine the parameters of our social contract with nature. She says, ‘the water under the bridge or at the end of the boardwalk may be menacing at times. These structures act as conduits over challenging terrain while also protecting fragile shorelines from damaging footfalls.’
Brotman is a print-based artist also engaged in drawing and sculpture. her print sculptures have been included in exhibitions at Lehman College Gallery, New York, Edinburgh Printmakers, International Print Centre New York, and in a solo at Harcourt House, Edmonton. She sits on the board of CARFAC and teaches at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
TAC
The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Toronto Arts Council.
***

Martha Eleen - "My Space"

In Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan contends that a space requires a movement from a place to another place. Similarly, a place requires a space to be a place. Hence, the two notions are co-dependent.
My Space is a series of paintings about the space between the artist’s skin and the outside world.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and The Ontario Arts Council
cca and oac

Tuesday, April 8, 2014







a visit with Yael Brotman     

What is your starting point, subject matter or form?
  
My starting point is always a combination of the two. Every new body of work is an extension of the work that came before it. In the case of Scaffolding, my current suite of paper sculptures, the houses and trailers that I had previously constructed led to an examination of bridges, piers and related abstracted structures. 
 
The underlying concept continues to look at mediating loci. In Mnemonic Stoop (2010) the houses I constructed mediated between the present and memories of childhood homes – the building blocks of personal identity - and between private and public spaces. The trailers and shacks in Shipping and Receiving (2012), dealt with national identity and our relationship with the wilderness. The trailers were a mediating point between urban comfort and wild landscape. The piers and bridges of Scaffolding (2014) consider our relation to bodies of water – how we cross them or get near them – and also imply the positive and negative aspects of that proximity.

The use of form and materiality develops along with the concept. In the new work, I transform the etched Japanese paper into miniature lumber of various colours and sizes. I also further explore how a straight solid hard-edged piece of foam core can become rounded, curved, softened. So my starting point is two-pronged along an already existing trajectory of an idea.
 


How has your practice changed with time? 

I began my practice with a parallel interest in drawing and mask making. I made the masks out of handmade felt and later handmade paper. I was trying to bring these two and three- dimensional approaches together without too much success. I found that I could not make the marks I wanted to on the masks. I was then introduced to printmaking that allowed the use of freehand drawing along with the craftsmanship of preparing plates, that I enjoyed.

After many years of etching and silkscreening flat work on paper, I had an epiphany when I tried to recall the layout of my early childhood homes without the use of photographs. That was the beginning of the movement into sculptural paper constructions. But I continue to sketch before I build, and then to draw from the sculptures when they are completed. Drawing, I feel, is the base upon which all else grows.




What is inspiring your practice these days? 

These days I am very conscious of construction sites around the city. I seek out architectural models. And I research architects that I like – Zaha Hadid, Hezog and De Meuron, Frank Gehry. I am deeply inspired by the engineering of complicated structures and by the fine craftsmanship of woodworkers and carpenters. I am also inspired by Froebel, the 19th century inventor of the concept of kindergarten, and his building blocks and ‘Gifts’.



What are you currently reading?

Right now I’ve got a few books on the go. I just finished  Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins (a social history of the early 20th century looking at music, dance, art and war, beginning with Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes). I am also reading Seige 13 by Tamas Dobozy (very dark) and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (things are not always what they seem and sometimes you can miss a critical clue and misread the whole thing). I am going to re-read Inventing Kindergarten by Norman Brosterman (about Froebel and his influence on the Bauhaus movement and on Frank Lloyd Wright).




Do you have a studio ritual?

In good weather I walk from my home to the studio. It is a 50- minute walk and provides a time for me to clear my head, look at people’s gardens and plan what I will do in the studio that day. I pick up a coffee on the way – I never make coffee at home because I know I would drink way too much if it was so accessible, My studio is in the basement of 87 Wade Ave, a building full of artists. I can feel the collective creative hum of the place when I arrive. Inside my studio, I turn on the lights and the radio – I listen to CBC 1 and 2 and to the jazz station at different times of the day. And then I begin to work. This year I was on sabbatical and could do this every day. 
What an absolute pleasure!


Thanks for the visit Yael!

Yael's exhibition Scaffolding runs until April 20th at Loop Gallery.

To see more of Yael's studio, check out these video tours:

http://youtu.be/uojKddgdVQc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr3yUkNTxZc&feature=share&list=UUSUcxI-RM5VFDrEvFuIghKA