Matthew Varey, Focus Time, 2011. Oil on panel, 20 x 20″
February 1 – March 3, 2012
Opening: Thursday, February 9, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
TELEPHOON BOOTH GALLERY
3148 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON, M6P 2A1
T: 647.270.7983
E: sharlene@telephoneboothgallery.ca
www.telephoneboothgallery.ca/
Hours: Tues by appointment, Wed–Fri 11:00–6:00 p.m., Sat 10:00-6:00 p.m
Colour is the dominant force within Matthew Varey’s recent abstract Bunkerpaintings. The works are influenced by the evolution of military fortifications, the advent of modern condominium towers, European travel, and family history. Varey’s use of colour and texture create a strong visual tension between the dynamic and static, exterior and interior, form and function. To that end, several bunkers appear to be dismantled, others overbuilt with numerous teetering roofs and surfaces. These “fortifications” begin to vibrate, float or dissolve into the whiteness. The brushwork serves to free the colour from the structure, suspending interpretation of what the structures are, or their use, allowing for a fresh experience and examination. The original function of the bunkers ceases to exist as the structures become a living part of Varey’s colour field environments.
In considering the bunkers in his essayFun Bunkers, Tamas Dobozy states “there is, finally, no real point of entry (despite the open door), because there is nowhere to enter into, no one reading of the purpose of these sculptures or buildings, except for the advent of interpretation itself.”
For Varey, the bunker is the safest possible environment. “I have tracked down bunkers in many countries in Europe, including Greece where I lived for a time, and have always had the same reaction when I am inside. Beyond the obvious connections to safety, there is a link for me to home in its purest conceptual sense, and so I see the progression to condominium as quite natural. There is stillness and coolness and a silence that is absolute peace, despite the war related connotations…
The walls are crucial to the understanding- the walls of a home – what is inside, what is outside, the shape, the impregnability or the ‘pregnability’, the density and quality or lack of quality. It is all about the walls.”
Also featuring works by Jesse Bromm.
Jesse Bromm, Landscape I, detail. Blown glass, mixed media, found objects, h. 27cm x .w. 16cm
Matthew Varey was born in Hamilton in 1968 and graduated from McMaster University’s Visual Art program in 1992. Varey had his first international solo exhibition in Europe in 1995 and has since exhibited at the Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa in Venice, Art Cologne, Art Miami and the Toronto International Art Fair, as well as galleries in Greece and across Canada. His work is held in corporate and private collections in the United States, Korea, England, Spain, Greece, Germany and Canada. Varey lives and works in Toronto.
Jesse Bromm graduated from Sheridan College – Crafts and Design: Glass Program in 2010. Bromm’s work reflects his inner discomfort and perception of the outside world. He creates miniature dioramas of human behaviour that address these concerns. Figures are tangible and relatable, but the found objects are hidden; mediated by the glass’s quality to distort. The glass becomes a metaphor for our altered perception of reality. Bromm has exhibited across Canada and in the United States. He was accepted into Harbourfront Centre’s artist-in-residency programme and awarded a scholarship in 2011.