October 26 – December 1, 2012
Artist Talks: Friday, October 26, 6 – 7 p.m.
Opening Reception: Friday, October 26, 7 – 9 p.m.
OPEN STUDIO GALLERY
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto ON, M5V 3A8
T/F: 416-504-8238
E-mail: sara@openstudio.on.ca
W: http://www.openstudio.on.ca
Hours: Tues – Sat, 12 – 5 p.m.
Open Studio is pleased to present the 2011-12 Scholarship/Fellowship Exhibitions from October 26 – December 1, 2012, featuring artists Liz Menard (Nick Novak Fellowship), Jennie Suddick (Donald O’Born Family Scholarship), and Alexander Froese (Don Phillips Scholarship).
All three artists will give illustrated talks about their work and the progress of their projects over the year on Friday, October 26 at 6 pm at Open Studio, followed by an opening reception. As Orono, ON-based artist and curator Maralynn Cherry points out in the accompanying essay, the common thread between these three exhibitions is the unique way in which the artists re-read sites in an ever more complex cultural landscape.
Open Studio Gallery
Liz Menard: Nature of the River
Nick Novak Fellowship Exhibition
Former Eastern Avenue Bridge, hand drawn etching, aquatint, 22” x 30”, 2012
Nature and the environment inspire Liz Menard’s Nature of the River. Sustaining environmental biodiversity is important and a recurring theme in her work. She is interested in native and invasive species and the natural, abandoned and built environments where they live. Fascinated by the Don River, Menard researched archival maps and images, which she combined with personal explorations (on foot and by canoe) to create hand drawn etched copper plates exploring what was and what is the Nature of a river. This work is rich in detail and open ended to engage viewers and encourage dialogue about our role in helping nature and the environment continue to withstand the pressures, stresses and tests of our times.
Print Sales Gallery
Jennie Suddick: I was here
Donald O’Born Family Scholarship Exhibition
Odessa, watercolour paper, Mylar, velum, masonite, LEDs, 12” x 2” x 6”, 2011. Photograph by Thomas Blanchard.
Jennie Suddick’s work reflects on tourism’s role in facilitating access to Canada’s vast and iconic geography. Influenced by key moments throughout the history of tourism in Canada, as well as her own personal memories of childhood family vacations, Suddick creates two-dimensional and three-dimensional paper works that reference the symbols and sites of this distinct aspect of Canadiana. In I was here, Suddick reflects on the celebrated “pit-stops” found along our countries Trans-Canada highway. These multi-faceted buildings serve a unique dual-purpose – being hubs for the communities in which they are found, as well as sought out (or accidental) landmarks for travelers. Through her handmade papercraft structures Suddick elevates the status of roadside sites by presenting them as carefully constructed, detailed architectural forms.
George Gilmour Members’ Gallery
Alexander Froese: A Motel for Words & Ideas
Don Phillips Scholarship Exhibition
Impulse Arrested, screenprint on paper & mixed media, 4 3/4″ x 1″ x 5/8″, 2012
In A Motel for Words & Ideas, Froese engages in the aesthetics of mid-twentieth century commercial design through the practice of printmaking, inhabiting the form of common products and advertisements to serve as a meeting point between the text and the visual. By inhabiting recognizable commercial forms Froese is able to express new words for old desires. It is immediate yet nostalgic, sentimental yet fleeting. The dated structures become relevant and contemporary vehicles through the engagement of encompassing and enduring issues. Taking from the artist’s own understanding of the meaning of pain and joy the work is filtered through the language of text and image, providing a space in which viewers can commiserate, laugh and find hope. There exists an inherent beauty and consolation in the collective human desires for stability, authenticity and reason in the navigation of an individual existential understanding. Immediately familiar yet sensitive in their subjectivity, expressions of hope and desire can find a unique access point through the implementation of commercial imagery. By embodying a highly personal sentiment in a familiar object the message becomes at once accessible and anonymous.