Chris Dow at Loop Gallery

Chris Dow's exhibition entitled Landscapes is currently showing at Loop Gallery.

Chris describes painting as “an ethereal endeavour.  Painting requires exploring feelings or perceptions that come from some place not understood and a place where words do not exist.  The act of painting is experienced and the subject matter is a convenient starting point. I like painting outdoors and the way this requires intuitive response. Working in the studio forces me to take a contemplative approach, this is often more of a problem solving process where the problem itself is not an intellectual one.”                                                                                                                                                    

Chris Dow has spent several of the past six years living abroad in both Japan and Australia, writing software and painting in his spare time.   After receiving his Bachelor Degree in Engineering, Chris attended the Ontario College of Art & Design, where he studied in Florence, Italy in their Off Campus Program.   Dow has exhibited in galleries across Canada as well as in Italy.

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.