Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Two new shows to liven up the dead of winter


February 28 – March 22, 2015 Opening Reception: February 28, 2015, 2-5 p.m.
Guided Visit: Sunday, March 22, 2015, 2 p.m.

Sandra Gregson Erebus & Terror

Sandra Gregson’s initial idea for this exhibition was a consideration of fear and how it is shaped by culture, for example, fairy tales of ‘big, bad wolves’. Whilst researching, Gregson lived for a year in Edinburgh, Scotland and her research about fear and wolves led to an investigation of topics such as the Scottish landscape and land use, legends and children’s stories, wilderness, rewilding, British explorers and settlers in Canada, including Franklin’s search for the NorthWest Passage on his ships, presciently named, Erebus and Terror. This is Gregson’s second exhibition at loop Gallery. During the past year, she participated in an artists' residency in Portugal and her video works were screened at Cinecycle in Toronto.


Mary Catherine Newcomb Lucy in the Dark

In Lucy in the Dark, Mary Catherine Newcomb continues to probe the ways in which we perceive and construct models of reality. She frames the concept of blindness in terms of perceptual bias, and/or a willed/imposed mechanism for psychological survival. By contrast, Newcomb considers being in the dark as indicative of both a loss of control and a state of potential.

Mary Catherine Newcomb’s work has been recognized with several grants from the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council, as well as prizes from various organizations. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and in Germany. She currently resides in Kitchener, Ontario and teaches in the Visual and Creative Arts program at Sheridan College in Oakville.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

                                                    a visit with Sandra Gregson


Any studio goals for 2015? 
Any new material you've started playing with in your studio? 

I'm finishing up work for a show which opens at Loop at the end of February; I'm very excited to start a new project after that. I've worked with drawing, sculpture and video for several years however I have this desire to start painting! During a residency this past summer in Portugal, I used water-based oil paint to make the images for a stop camera video and loved using paint. I was seduced by the texture of the paint and the intensity of the colours. 

I'm looking forward to process of clearing up my studio, putting away the research resources, preparatory work, and materials I've been using. I intend to empty my studio completely to ready for what I see as a big shift in my work. I'm curious how I'll approach painting: if I'll work in series, or integrate it again with video.
























  How do you know when a work is finished?

I often spend a long time on work, often 'practicing' the work before starting it by doing maquettes or sketches, then intensely working to make it. Then I'll pause with the work, leaving it not quite finished in order to reflect on it. I don't hurry to finish work. I don't like the feeling of having to let it go so will linger, reluctantly completing work, changing details, refining parts. 

When I think the work is close to finished, I  take the work out of my studio and put it in a room in my house to look at it in a different context, to see how it holds up outside of the studio context. If the work feels self reliant, if it presents itself as its own entity, I know it's done. It's not finished if it doesn't feel convincing and I'll take it back to the studio to rework it.




What is your most important tool as an artist? 


Because of sculpture and video work, I have used a variety of tools. My most important tool, and most sustaining for me however, is a pencil. There is something so satisfying about the sound and feel of a pencil on paper. I particularly like a 2B pencil when it has been used and sharpened several times so that it is about a third of its original size.  
 
Using a pencil and paper is my way of thinking about what I want to make or do. It's how I work out ideas, visualize work. I usually draw a combination of images with words to start the process of shaping ideas into form. Later, if I feel stumped by a work, I'll go back and draw it in order to rethink it, and with pencil and paper it is so much easier to change, rethink, redo because it is so immediate. 





What are you listening to in the studio these days?
  
I like silence in the studio because it helps me concentrate ad become immersed in the work. Sometimes I listen to radio but only when I'm at a stage in the work which involves repetitious tasks; it's usually cbc that I listen to - music and talk shows.



 Thanks Sandra for the studio visit!

Plan to see her upcoming show at loop:
Erebus & Terror  February 28 to March 22, 2015
Opening Saturday February 28 from 2 to 5 p.m.
Gallery visit with artist Sunday March 22 from 2 to 3 p.m.

 
or visit her website at www.sandragregson.ca


Monday, February 2, 2015

Maybe it’s the minus15 degree temperature that has me thinking about hot houses, but if you have ever walked through botanical gardens with interconnected glass and iron ribbed structures like the ones in Glasgow, you’ll know that as you move from room to room,  you move from one climate to another.

Where am I going with this? Lanny Shereck has a show on at Queen Specific, Dufflet’s window gallery. He has stacked a series of small paintings and  attached them to a narrow  board so they are interconnected like rooms. It reads like a schematic diagram of the aforementioned greenhouses, except that we are looking at paintings of artists working in their studios. Within the intense studio clutter, we see that exotic specimen - the artist - almost camouflaged as he or she works in the unique microclimate of his or her own making - the habitat essential ( sorry can’t resist this ) for the flowering of their  creations. 

“Studio Visits” is on until March 3
Lanny Shereck and Libby Hague are 2 of the 30 plus  members of the  Loop collective in Toronto.