LOOP Gallery Presents Sung Ja Kim and Jane LowBeer

Sung Ja Kim and Jane LowBeer invite you to attend the opening of their shows at LOOP Gallery tomorrow Saturday, January 30, 2010 from 2 - 5 pm.

Sung Ja Kim's exhibition Nest communicates the idea of being sheltered from the inevitable storms of life through a growing spiritual awareness.

Nest incorporates multi-imaged works of specially constructed cocoons, encapsulate the central dimensions of our life experiences. Another work in the exhibition uses nests as an artistic metaphor for being spiritually sheltered from the elemental forces of life that are completely beyond our control. Kim emphasizes borrowed imagery from the natural world by using materials in their natural states.

Sung Ja Kim was born near Seoul, South Korea.  She studied classical oriental visual art at Chu Gyo Art University in Seoul and worked as an animator. Following a number of successful group and solo exhibitions in Seoul, Sung Ja came to Canada. She is a graduate of the Fine Arts Program at OCAD. Nest is Sung Ja's fifth exhibition at Loop Gallery.

In Jane LowBeer's Light on Little Things we see a glimpse of day-to-day living; the toothpaste tube, sink plug, push pins and nail brushes. These household items, ubiquitous and accessible are the models for her art work.


Light on Little Things consists of three components; each group with a different relationship to the same objects. In the monotype series "Hands and Objects", each print depicts a single object held or touched by a hand. In the monotypes "Inventory" objects are all lined up but without reference to ground, cut loose with no shelf or tabletop to hold them. Finally, a series of small paintings of toothpaste tubes; the tubes bend and used, each in their own personnel setting in the manner of traditional still life. Their contortions can be seen as metaphors for human activity.

Jane LowBeer started her artistic career as a printmaker studying with Stanley Hayler at Atelier 17 in Paris. She has exhibited in New York, Montreal and Europe. Her work can be seen at L'Espace Mexique in Montreal and Open Studio and Nikola Rukai Gallery in Toronto as well as on her website here.

Both shows will run until February 21, 2010.
LOOP Gallery is located at 1273 Dundas Street West in Toronto.
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday 1-5 pm; Sunday 1-4 pm

This Week at LOOP Gallery

LOOP Gallery is currently closed for installation of the next show which features Jane Lowbeer and Sung Ja Kim. The Gallery will reopen on Saturday, January 30th at 2 pm for their reception.

If you would like to read reviews of LOOP members Larry Eisenstein's and Heather Carey's show (which closed on Sunday), click on the links here and here.

Artist Profile: Larry Eisenstein

Thanks to spam filters, schedule conflicts and other absurdities of life, I was unable to complete my artist profile of Larry Eisenstein. But I did not want to leave his profile completely undone and so have "borrowed" the artist statement from his website which has been reproduced below. It tells much about this highly energetic, multi-talented and well-connected artist; and truthfully, does a better job than I would ever do.

I love drawing.  I became a compulsive doodler in public school when drawing pictures was dangerous, subversive fun. My first art project was a pornographic primer/magazine, drawn on stolen school carbon copy paper, secretly printed in the office copy room. I charged a nickel and got into a lot of hot water when my Grade 5 teacher Mr. Cassidy dumped the contents of my messy desk onto the classroom floor when I was at home with the flu. 

In those days, I most truly lived within the margins of my exercise books. I developed a facility for drawing tiny pictures, undetectable to the roving eyes of teachers. I drew monumentally violent struggles on battlesfields in cities, skies and oceans. I inherited this talent for making miniature marks from my great-grandfather whose vocation it was to inscribe the Judaic Torah onto tiny scrolls of parchment paper, stuffed into ornate talisman boxes nailed for protection to the doorways of Jewish homes in Poland. 

I use finely sharpened pencils and 000 sable watercolor brushes when I'm obsessed with detail and conversely cheap rabbit hair calligraphy brushes when fat crude strokes best expresses my feelings and thoughts. As far as my practice goes, I maintain a traditional studio space, but end up doing most of my production in close proximity to the myriad stashes of pencils, brushes and paper located all over my house, These caches are marked by ink stained walls, floors and furniture. Herds of erasers abound in these environs seemingly copulating and reproducing like rabbits. Everyone in my family tolerates my mania and works hard to camouflage the carnage. 


I use color apprehensively. Pencils, charcoal sticks and black ink enable a direct and spontaneous reportage.The graphic element I care most about is shape. I approach color and meaning as secondary considerations. When I spend too much time coloring or contemplating the meaning of my work, my thoughts easily drift off to the next doodle. I try to keep the sequence of cognition in my work as primal as possible by concentrating as much focus, energy and emotion into the stroke, the voice of my work.

To see more of Larry's work, visit his website here. As well, don't miss this afternoon's question and answer session with both Larry Eisenstein and Heather Carey and moderated by Audrea DiJulio  at LOOP Gallery.

Question and Answer Session with Heather Carey and Larry Eisenstein

LOOP Gallery member Audrea DiJulio will be moderating a Question and Answer session with Heather Carey and Larry Eisenstein on Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 3 pm.

This is the last weekend to see the vibrant juxtaposition of Heather Carey's colorful paintings in Approaching Mimesis and Larry Eisenstein's energized and mystical drawings in Phoslogica.

LOOP Gallery is located at 1273 Dundas Street West.

Gallery Hours this weekend are:

Friday/Saturday 1 to 5 pm

Sunday 1 to 4 pm

LOOP Members at Harbourfront Centre Winter Exhibition

LOOP Gallery members Martha Eleen, Suzanne Nacha and David Holt are participating in the Big/Small exhibition curated by Patrick Macaulay at Harbourfront Centre and invite you to see their work which will be on display January 23 to April 4, 2010. This exhibition "brings together eight Ontario-based painters to reveal each participants' unique approach to realizing the landscape".

Suzanne Nacha: Focused on imagery from underground mine shafts, cave systems and rail tunnels, my current body of work entitled Origin seeks to present landscape as an intimate location. In many of these shaped paintings a struggle exists between the architecture of the space, the shape of the canvas and the abbreviated marks that define it. With this particular image I was interested in creating a space that would appear as though it was carved out of the darkness by the very lights it contained. 

Underground 7, Oil on Canvas, Copyright of Suzanne Nacha, 2009

David Holt: My recent paintings depict subjects from natural history, architectural history, antiquities collections, and botanical gardens. The garden landscapes are influenced by my love for the classical landscapes of Poussin, Asian landscape painting and calligraphy, and children’s drawings. Although I make many small drawings of the subjects, the paintings themselves are derived purely from imagination and memory. I try to evoke the motifs playfully with abbreviated forms and an economy of means. I also try to make each brushstroke convey something of nature’s energy while serving both representation and composition.

    Big Hedge 2009

    Acrylic on Canvas, 30x24, Copyright of David Holt, 2009

Martha Eleen is also in the community-centred show in the Harbourfront Centre Architecture Gallery opening the same night (guess she has to be in two places at once!). This show involves three architects and one painter on the topic of how architecture shapes the community. Martha's series Necessities of Life is about the poetics of using box mall signage.

The artists invite you to join them at the openings at Harbourfront Centre on Friday, January 22, 2010 from 6-10 pm.

Artist Profile: Heather Carey

Heather Carey's paintings at Loop Gallery light up the gray winter days like bursts of warm sunshine. Infused with rich bright colour, she plays with our perception by inserting abstract forms into spaces devoid of people. I was particularly drawn to a pair of lush paintings from a fruit orchard as they seemed to wash away the gray days of winter from my psyche.

Ingrid:  What is your earliest memory as an artist?
Heather:  My earliest memory of making art is probably a pretty typical one. As a four or five year old, my favourite thing to do was take out my giant box of crayons and draw.

Ingrid:  What do you enjoy most about painting?
Heather: I enjoy the process (building up, taking away, correcting), the restrictions and freedoms which allow for focused invention and experimentation with different languages of marks, use of the painting space, sizes, colour!

Ingrid: Your work uses very high key colours. How do you chose your palette?
Heather: I'm not interested in realism so even when using a photographic source I am more interested in how the colours on the canvas work with each other. Sometimes I am looking to emphasize certain marks as being artificial or superficial to the image in the painting. In recent work, colours have been selected more as part of a method layering with different mediums, not necessarily knowing how the end product will turn out.

Ingrid:  How do you approach a painting? Do you begin with a photographic reference?
Heather: I often begin with a photographic reference, either for drawing purposes or as inspiration for a more abstract representation. I am not interested in being faithful to the photo, but it's often a useful place to start.

Ingrid: Your spaces have a mystical reverence to them. Is this deliberate? How do you chose which spaces to paint?
Heather: I try to chose spaces which are open, easy to modify and add to, which play well with light. Many of my spaces are chosen because of their lack of human presence and their anonymity which makes them more accessible for the viewer and less personal to me. This perhaps means that more viewers can make connections with the spaces.

Ingrid:  The addition of the abstract forms over top adds an unlikely morphism and an almost humourous waulity to your paintings. Is this deliberate? How do you know where to make these marks?
Heather: Yes, it is deliberate. The marks are attempting to be a part of the image displayed and do not quite succeed the way it might be expected. They are both separate and connected to the space. I see the images (spaces) depicted on the canvas as a sort of metaphor for the canvas itself and the marks as possibilities within or on top of the space. Because of the way perception works the viewer can complete the image and imagine the marks to be figures within the work. They are playful little invaders. I place them almost intuitively where they seem to fit best within the particular space I am putting them.

Ingrid: What is it about perception that interests you?
Heather: The way the brain is trained to experience the world around us - being able to tell where the edges of objects are, how to navigate around them, what they are used for - based on what we have learned in life. These learned cues can be played with through art to create an experience which is familiar - but not entirely...

Ingrid: You mentioned that you have applied to begin an MFA degree. What do you hope to gain from this experience?
Heather: I am interested in learning, teaching, networking. Basically becoming more aware of what kinds of things are being made and who is making them. I am interested in working closely with other artists, sharing ideas and opinions. I hope to come out of the program feeling more like an artist and less like a student. I have a habit of producing whatever is on my mind, wanting to experiment, and my practice can be a bit all over the place. Not that I want to stop experimenting, but I would like to create a more guided cohesive body of work.

Ingrid: What is your next series?
Heather: I'm looking to extend the ideas of combined spaces and imitation to include more illusions within illusions, doing a series involving bathroom tile patterns.

The exhibition of Heather Carey's work Approaching Mimesis at Loop Gallery will be on display until Sunday, January 24 at 5 pm. If you cannot make it to the show, check out her work on her website here.

Heather Carey and Larry Eisenstein at Loop Gallery

Loop Gallery invites you to join Heather Carey and Larry Eisenstein for their opening reception on Saturday, January 9, 2010 from 2-5 pm. The exhibition of their work will run until Sunday, January 24, 2010.

Heather Carey's exhibition of paintings Approaching Mimesis explores perception and how the mind completes or interprets images based on the knowledge we have. Spaces empty of human presence are given character by the brightly coloured abstract marks placed on top which appear to float in front and create an illusion of space. In this series, Heather demonstrates what is possible in painting by the re-invention of images.

 

In his exhibition of drawings entitled Phoslogica, Larry Eisenstein explores the New Biology's concepts of human unconscious processes, morphogenetic fields and morphonic resonances. This work is part of a series called Cellves and seeks to answer the questions: Are the laws of nature merely habits? And can art influence these habits?

Loop Gallery 
1273 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Ontario
416-516-2581
email: loopgallery@primus.ca

Gallery Exhibition Schedule for 2010

The 2010 exhibition schedule at Loop Gallery is as follows:

January 2 - 24     Heather Carey and Larry Eisenstein

January 30 -
February 21         Sung Ja Kim and Jane LowBeer

February 27 -
March 21             Tara Cooper and Elizabeth D'Agostino

March 27 -
April 18               Mark Adair and Mary Catherine Newcomb

April 24 -
May 16                 Yvonne Singer and Lanny Shereck

May 22
- June 13               Libby Hague and Rochelle Rubinstein

June 19 -
July 11                  Chris Dow and Lorene Bourgeois

July 17 -
August 8                Isabelle Hemard and JJ Lee

August 9 -
August 22              TBA

August 28 -
September 18         Elizabeth Babyn and Linda Heffernan

September 25
- October 17           Maureen Paxton and Barbara Rehus

October 23 -
November 14         Yael Brotman and Candida Girling

November 20 -
December 12          Kelly Cade and Gary Clement