Joanne Tod, Liquidity, 2015, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches. Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery
Joanne Tod’s Slipstream, on view now at the Nicholas Metivier Gallery, sees the artist visualizing institutional spaces, both barren and populated. Empty hallways, storefront window displays, and boardroom conferences are rendered in the artist’s particular mimetic aesthetic, providing a window into bleak, yet familiar interiors.
Joanne Tod, A Lemon Entry, 2014, oil on linen, 18 x 14 inches. Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery
Tod employs Renaissance perspectival principles when recreating her typically commonplace subject matter, injecting her images with a sense of realism and technical dexterity. Her canvases act as portals into new existences, inviting the viewer into locations of exploration and endless potential. Similarly, these desolate passages position the viewer as an urban explorer, imaginatively unlocking the possibilities that interlocking stairwells and doorways present, creating a multifaceted phenomenological experience from painting to painting.
Joanne Tod, Serpentine Fire, 2015, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches. Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery
In the images where humanly figures are present, the viewer is privileged an all-encompassing, yet distanced perspective in relation to these peculiar tableaus, randomly placed in these inhabited spaces as a curious indoor flâneur/flâneuse. Furthermore, these scenarios posit a wealth for potential interaction, whether it is passively witnessing an orchestral practice session or a willing participant in a pedagogical lecture.
Joanne Tod, Phantom Limb, 2015, oil on canvas, 64 x 48 inches. Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery
Throughout the exhibition, the viewer slips in and out of separate spaces, enabling peculiarly disparate experiences within each rectilinearly framed image. These interiors incite a sense of exploration, and an imagining of the endless possibilities encoded within these expertly crafted paintings.
Joanne Tod, Gig, 2014, oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches. Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery
David Saric
*Exhibition information: October 15 – November 7, 2015, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, 451 King Street West, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tue–Sat, 10 am–6 pm.