Sunday March 3, 2 to 4 p.m. is the Opening Reception for Jane LowBeer: Seams and Rochelle Rubinstein: SCRAP

The exhibition runs from March 2 to March 24, 2013.

The Artist Talk, moderated by Lanny Shereck, is Sunday March 24 at 2 p.m.

Inspired by the scenic views from her new hill-top studio overlooking swathes of rolling farmland and cedar woods, Jane LowBeer has created a suite of abstract images which reference the patterns of fields, the gestures of grass under snow, angled barns, and forest lines.

Seams (2013)

Using a sewing machine as both pencil and glue, the artist combines off-cuts of both old and new prints and monotypes. The sewing holds the integrity of the rag paper and the stitches act as both lines and seams. Unstitched pieces create subtle changes to the collage, leaving textured traces that evoke erased marks, pentimenti and ghostings. In response to the large and elusive qualities of landscape, LowBeer presents a body of work that is textural and direct.

LowBeer is a mixed media artist living in downtown Toronto. She trained as a printmaker at Atelier 17 in Paris; monotypes have been her medium of choice for more than a decade. During her artistic career she has garnered prizes and exhibited in Europe, New York and Montreal. Her works are in many private and public collections, including The Victorian & Albert Museum in London and the Biblioteque National in Paris. In Toronto, her work can also be found at the Nikola Rukaj Gallery and Open Studio.

SCRAP, a new exhibition by loop member, Rochelle Rubinstein, draws inspiration from varied sources, including Aztec codices, Hebrew text, Nancy Spero's bold graphics, ancient Equadorian pottery designs, and the histories, quirks, and sorrows of her family. 31 hanging accordion-folded books, in an installation named SCRAP, are connected through shared themes of repression, ambiguity, loss, pleasure, memory and its displacements.

SONOGRAM, block-printed, painted and carved wood panel (2013)

SENESCENCE and SONOGRAM are two large-scale, block-printed, painted and carved wood panels. In SENESCENCE, the framework is a repetition of the Hebrew text of Kaddish, a mourner's prayer that addresses the releasing of attachment to mortal existence. In SONOGRAM, the central image is based on a fetal sonogram, but also resembles a pond, consisting of dozens of prints of fish, babies, stones, socks, and flying women. The pond echoes amniotic fluid, nourishing and protecting new life. Surrounding the pond/sonogram are layered representations of rural Ontario's vegetation and hills. Seen from a distance, the morass of images dissolves into abstraction.

Rubinstein is a Toronto- based printmaker, painter, fabric and book artist, community arts facilitator, and curator of Mon Ton Window Gallery. Her work has been exhibited in such diverse places as Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Yeshiva University Museum, New York; Print Triennial, Estonia; and McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton.