Dignan Painting Selected by Canada Council Art Bank

 

Paul Dignan's painting, "Cota 1", has been purchased for the permanent collection at the Canada Council's Art Bank. There were 1875 submissions to the collection this year, with a mere 52 selected. 

Congratulations, Paul!

(Our Summer Group Show, opening Thursday, July 7, will contain Dignan's recent work, as well as work from an earlier period, making for an interesting comparison in his evolution as a hard-edge abstractionist.)

Paul Dignan at Thames Gallery, Chatham

Paul Dignan will be exhibiting several new paintings in "Systems Check",  curated by Jordan Broadworth at the Thames Gallery in Chatham. The exhibition runs from June 10 to July 24, 2011, with an artist reception coming up this weekend, on Saturday June 18.

Paul Dignan "Cota 1", 2011 acrylic on canvas 48" x 48"

Paul Dignan "Cota 3", 2011 acrylic on canvas 48" x 48"

About the exhibition:

"There is a form of abstraction that is born from the knowledge that painting is process and that paint, like print, television, the Internet – is not simply a conveyor of content but is in-itself the stuff of thought. The artists in Systems Check: Lowell Bradshaw, Mathew Bushell, Ingrid Calame, Paul Dignan, and Angela Leach have each created their own idiosyncratic, methodological approaches to painting. These artists, from Canada and the United States utilize a wide variety of sites, systems and tools in shaping well-defined and deliberate frameworks; each one incorporating varying degrees of chance, mystery and the matter-of-fact. As divergent as their work may appear the artists featured in Systems Check share a common sense of clarity and economy. This is work that avoids painterly pratfalls and bluster while contributing to an expanding vision of painting’s potential."

Installation Shots: McCall, Britton and Selected Works Group Show

 

One last look at our Exhibitions for April, 2011. 

Starting in the Lower Gallery with  Kai McCall: "The Weightlessness"

 

 

 

 And now, up the stairs to the Mezzanine Gallery and Kelvin Britton: "That and This"

  

On to the final gallery...

The view into the Upper Gallery, Group Show of Selected Works by Gallery Artists.

Paul Dignan painting in foreground, Khang Pham New marble sculpture in background.

       Two Caroline DeMooy's flanking a Kieran Brent.

Annie Tung: three new spoon sculptures

Three Pearl Van Geest paintings.

A Kelvin Britton "Rose" painting, sculptures by Svava Juliusson, and a Lauren Nurse self-portrait.

And, tucked away in the reference corner, a Jan Ollner painting and another Svava Juliusson sculpture.

Paul Dignan at Benedicta Arts Center, Minnesota

Paul Dignan has been invited to exhibit work created between 2004 to 2009 in a solo show at the Benedicta Arts Centre at Saint John's University in Minnesota. The exhibition runs from March 3 to April 8, 2011. These paintings, which differ from the work now showing at KWT Contemporary, use ambiguous imagery taken from sources such as monograms, wallpaper designs, sections of cartoons and other sampled imagery as well as self generated drawings.

"Untitled", 2006, acrylic on canvas, 48"x48"

Paul Dignan's latest paintings (on view at KWT Contempporary through Feb. 26, 2011) can be described as neo-op, hard-edged geometric abstraction. Dignan is a master of the unexpected when it comes to colour,. His work has literally been stopping traffic on Richmand St. W. for the past few weeks.  The sidewalks may be slushy and the skies grey, but it is spring on the other side of our 14' main floor windows. Given that Minnesota has even harsher weather conditions than we do here in Toronto, we know that Dignan's work will be well received.

"Untitled (pink)", 2010, acrylic on canvas, 54"x54"

Of his latest work, Dignan says: "I make hard edge abstract paintings that use a simple grid as a starting point.  The paintings produced for this show came about through a decision to re-examine the defined, schematic striped paintings I made in the UK in the 1990’s and also in relation to the paintings I made between 2004 – 2009, after I had relocated to Canada. I wanted to reintroduce the illusion of order into this new body of work by using a rigidly defined specific structure as a starting point - usually an 8 x 8 grid. This is then deconstructed, manipulated and altered through intuitive decision-making processes whilst at the same time making reference to the original grid format.... The colour choices have been influenced by my experience of living in Canada as I have become more and more aware of the effects of the extreme shifts in Canadian weather.  Objects and buildings become faded, bleached and weathered - for example, the faded orange of a rusting child's bicycle that has been left out all winter or the bleached yellowing green of a fence subjected to constant bouts of humidity and a scorching summer sun." 

You can see more of Dignan's work here.

Inaugural Show Reviewed in Globe and Mail

The re-launch and inaugural exhibitions which opened last Saturday saw over 350 in attendance, followed up this weekend by a complimentary review from R.M. Vaughan in the Globe and Mail: "... three excellent mini-shows: a suite of crisp neo-Op Art works by Paul Dignan, paintings wherein interconnecting, bent geometric shapes overlap in soothing, hazy colours, with the brighter tones jumping off the canvas like hurled blades in a 3-D movie; Svava Thordis Juliusson’s wacky, twitchy collection of sculptures made from Play-Doh-bright twist ties and packaging materials; and Lauren Nurse’s surreal set of photographs, including a face covered in white globules (pearls? fish eggs?) and a face with glued-on sticks for eyelashes." Read more here

Three Exhibitions and Gallery Re-launch

Three Exhibitions and Gallery Re-launch

Reception: February 5, 6-8 p.m.

Lower Gallery
Paul Dignan: "Another After One"

Mezzanine
Svava Thordis Juliusson: "Saman Safnast"

Upper Gallery
Lauren Nurse: "you are my mirror"

Exhibition runs from February 5 - 26, 2011
Gallery Hours: Wed-Sat, 12-6 p.m.