BIG DOINGS!

Nothing like a busy art month to keep you hopping, and keep the blood warm as the temperature plummets! Fall is my favourite season.

On Tuesday of last week, we participated in Art With Heart, with works on auction by the best of the best Canadian contemporary artists, including our own Lauren Nurse and Alexis Lavoie. Word is the auction alone netted over $500,000 for Casey House.

Last Thursday, we opened the Heather Nicol and Marina Black exhibitions at the gallery. Two gorgeous shows, and we'll have a virtual tour up for you soon.

Tonight is Gala Preview night at the Toronto International Art Fair. We are in Booth 1104,  in the NEXT section, along the West wall. (hint...look for Jay Wilson's 12 foot stalagmite made of toothpicks...really!.. and Kieran Brent's penetrating portrait Will. We'll be easy to spot.) Also, look for Heather Nicol's amazing installation, Spun Out and Lovely in OPEN SPACE.  And check out Svava Thordis Juliusson's Esjublatt,  big, blue and anthropomorphic, and chosen by the Art Dealers Association of Canada for their Masterpiece Wall at the fair.


And, at the Gladstone Hotel, opening tomorrow, upArt, Toronto's alternative art fair.  We'll have a room-sized installation by Lauren Nurse and Svava Thordis Juliusson (room 207) and an installation by Rachael Wong in the public gallery area.

Lots of pictures to come, I promise. Just need a few extra hours in my day.

Yvonne Singer to present her work at Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art

WORK LABOUR CREATIVITY

Seminar at Konsthallen–Bohusläns museum in Uddevalla
 Sunday 23 October, noon–4 pm
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, 2011, is titled Pandemonium – Art in a time of Creativity Fever. It touches on issues such as creativity, fictions, utopias and the rapidly changing conditions of today’s politics and economy. An open seminar on Sunday, October 23 at Konsthallen–Bohusläns Museum, aims at deepening discussion on today’s labour market and the wide use of the  term ’creativity’.


Linking Pandemonium: Remembering, Forgetting, Learning


Asma Mahmood, artist and curator from Toronto, Canada
 and Yvonne Singer, artist and Professor of Visual Art at York University, Canada, will present their works. Through her practice, Asma Mahmood has engaged as an activist in several areas of thought and action in Canada and in terms of immigrant and diaspora voices –especially in relation to the  Indian subcontinent. Yvonne Singer engages with the intersection of public and private histories, and her installation works employ multimedia techniques, often with cryptic texts to articulate cultural issues of disjuncture and perception. Their presentations are followed by a discussion with Professor Gertrud Sandqvist, co-curator of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 2011.


More information here.

A lovely time of the year to visit Sweden.  Congratulations, Yvonne!

Lavoie and Lafrance: "Nature Deficit" extended to Oct 15

We have had a wonderful response to the work of our two visiting artists from Montreal, Alexis Lavoie and David Lafrance.  Their exhibition, "Nature Deficit" has been extended until October 15, 2011. Alexis will also be bringing in two new paintings  for inclusion in our booth at the Toronto International Art Fair at the end of October.

Here is a partial walk-through of "Nature Deficit":

Alexis Lavoie stands outside the gallery, with "Découpe 1" 2011, oil on canvas, 51" x 54" 

in background.

Also in the front window: David Lafrance, "Aux Limites du décor" 2011, oil on canvas, 40 x 48.

Our virtual tour of "Nature Deficit" continues inside the gallery with David Lafrance: "Synthétieur" 2010, oil on canvas, 60" x 36".

David Lafrance: Plage Pauvre, 2010, oil on canvas, 36 x 36, Contre le Jour, 2010, oil on canvas
60 x 65,  and Fertilité 1, 10 x 12, oil on canvas.

Alexis Lavoie, "Brouillon", 2011, oil on canvas, 66 x 72 and
David Lafrance,  "Dépeupler", oil on canvas, 48 x 42

Three by Alexis Lavoie (all 2011, oil on canvas, 48 x 48):
"En Pièces 14", "En Pièces 13" and "En Pièces 10"

Kieran Brent: "New Paintings" extended to Oct. 15

 

Kieran Brent (left) with "Will": 2011, oil on canvas, 48"x48"

and (you guessed it!) model Will (right)

Virtual tour of the exhibition:

 

Rachael Wong: "Markings" extended to Oct.15

We are happy to announce that Rachael Wong's Markings has been extended for two weeks, until October 15.

R.M. Vaughan had this to say about the installation:

"Winner of the 2010 RBC Glass Award, Wong twists the hard liquid around her little finger like a besotted lover. Seashells and single-cell organisms, intestines and seed pods, all captured in pristinely painted and polished glass, bounce off the gallery walls in a mad cascade. Let’s give her the 2011 prize too."

Wong's artistic practise extends beyond glass. Drawing and printmaking are also an important piece of the puzzle: witness her shimmering, gorgeously complex digital prints on aluminum.

 

Brad Copping: Untitled (Black Canoes), 2001

Brad Copping, Untitled (Black Canoes),  2001
blown and acid etched glass, oil stain, wood, paper, 175 x 76 x 20

Brent, Lafrance, Lavoie and Wong open Sept 8, 2011

KWT contemporary presents three  exhibitions of new work featuring Kieran Brent, David Lafrance, Alexis Lavoie and Rachael Wong

Vernissage: Thursday September 8,  from 5 to 7 p.m.
September 8 to October 1, 2011

624 Richmond St. W., Toronto

   Lower Gallery
Kieran Brent: New Paintings

 Kieran Brent, "Untitled 1" 2011 (oil on canvas, 48" x 48")

This is the first solo exhibition for Kieran Brent, a gifted young artist who is a recent graduate of OCAD. Brent explains: "Contradiction is an important aspect of my work.  In my paintings I am exploring the boundaries and tensions between paint and flesh, abstraction and representation, stillness and motion, figure and ground." 
Kieran Brent is represented by KWT contemporary.

Mezzanine Gallery

Rachael Wong: "Markings"

 Rachael Wong, "Pile 2", 2011 (blown glass)

For her first solo show at KWT contemporary, Rachael Wong presents a large wall installation of glass sculpture and painting, smaller glass sculptures, and a series of digital prints on aluminum.  She holds a BFA in Glass from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary and an MFA in Sculpture/Dimensional Studies from Alfred University in New York State.  
Rachael Wong is the 2010 winner of the RBC Glass Award.
Rachael Wong is represented by KWT contemporary. 

Upper Gallery
Alexis Lavoie and David Lafrance: "Nature Deficit"

In their first exhibition at KWT contemporary, visiting artists Alexis Lavoie and David Lafrance present a series of new "landscape" paintings which explore themes of fragmentation and human desire, in collision with the natural world. Both artists are Montreal-based.

  Alexis Lavoie, "En Pièces (14)", 2011 (oil on canvas, 48"x48")

 David Lafrance, "Dépeupler", 2010 (oil on canvas, 48"x42") 

Alexis Lavoie is the 2010 winner of the RBC Painting Award, and is a recent graduate of UQAM. He states: " In "Nature Deficit",  I create zones of uncertainty, places that seem to be both the result of fragmentation and tension between several worlds. These psychological landscapes give rise to a troubled impression of lack and disconnect. Through the traces and scattered remains of past events the nature of these ambiguous locations constantly eludes us. What remains is only a threatening atmosphere, a sense of doubt and emptiness."

David Lafrance holds a B.F.A. from Concordia University, where he was awarded the Guido Molinari Prize. He is well known and respected in the Montreal art scene, as a prolific artist, working in painting, drawing and sculpture, and also as a musician and composer. Of his work in this exhibition, he states: " Nature Deficit Disorder is a contemporary urban affliction. We lack authentic experience with nature;  "wild" nature, but also the ritual and celebrations of "deep" human nature. In this context, my paintings could be described as highly delusional and broken landscapes with the elements of nature and culture locked in a strange and struggling balance."