Category: Mauricio Contreras-Parades

  • Luis Jacob “Spirits of the Grotto”

    Luis Jacob “Spirits of the Grotto”

    Offical launch: Friday, May 18, 2012, 5 – 5:30 p.m.

    Luis Jacob in front of his mural. Photo: Phil Anderson

    The official Launch of Luis Jacob s Spirits of the Grotto at the Dufferin Underpass took place May 18 5:30pm with politicans, City of Toronto councillors Gord Perks and Ana Bailao, MPP Cheri DiNovo, MP Peggy Nash and other City Official from the Culture Department.

      Zuly Jacob (Luis’ s mother), Peggy Nash (Member of Parliament), Luis Jacob and Jose Jacob, (Luis’s father). Photo: Phil Anderson

    Many interested residents and friends of Luis Jacob as well as media were also in attendance. The long awaited opening of this public art work was worth the waiting. The Dufferin Underpass is to be the envy of other areas of Toronto with underpasses.

    The “Spirits of the Grotto”, Dufferin Underpass. Photo: Luis Jacob

    Artist Luis Jacob said in his interview to artoronto.ca, “The project at the Dufferin Underpass is titled “Spirits of the Grotto”.  It consists of 34 panels that look like a series of large masks.  Each panel has two colourful “eyes”; together they look like spirits residing inside the walls of the tunnel and watching us as we make our way inside.  I imagine that some of these masks will remind people of the fabulous costumes of the Caribana parade, or the demons depicted in Tibetan silk paintings.  Some panels feature depictions of mirror balls, which remind me of places like the Beaver Café, Stone’s Place, and Wrongbar, on Queen Street West.” The read the interview please go to http://www.artoronto.ca/?p=10910.

     The “Spirits of the Grotto”, Dufferin Underpass. Photo: Luis Jacob

    Text: Phil Anderson

  • Urban Angels by Matthew Kudelka


    May 3- 27, 2012

    Opening: Saturday, May 5, 2 – 5 p.m.
    DAVID KAYE GALLERY
    1092 Queen Street West
    (entrance on Dovercourt)
    Toronto, ON M6J 1H9
    T: 416.532.9075
    E: info@davidkayegallery.com
    www.davidkayegallery.com
    Hours: Wed – Fri 11 – 6, Sat – Sun 11 –  5 p.m.

    Matthew Kudelka conducts an archaeology of the modern city. His prints reflect the urban as he encounters it directly. He chooses moments and transforms them in ways that destabilize the viewer’s expectations of their environment, emphasizing mood rather than polemic in an effort to ensure that viewers will see and absorb the familiar in ways they otherwise would not. His prints are only incidentally beautiful, demanding active thought rather than passive contemplation. He seeks out accurate portrayals of the places he knows best, which through his transformations engender moments that are both commonplace and unrepeatable. His subjects rise  from the street and linger without dissipating. Figure and ground are inseparable and could not be otherwise. They are all always embedded in his experience of the city, never in contrast to or contradistinction from it. (East  Gallery)

  • Adrienne Fonda: Personal Diaries

    October  19 – 30, 2011
    Opening: Thursday,  October  20th,  6pm
    GALLERY 1313 Process Gallery
    1313 QUEEN STREET WEST,
    TORONTO, ON M6K 1K8
    T: 416 – 536-6778
    E mail: director@g1313.org
    www.gallery13131.org
    Hours: Wed – Sun 1- 6

    Personal Diaries are oil on canvas works by Adrienne Fonda.

    “These very large and very small paintings form a visual  diary of the painting problems that I have been trying to resolve in the past few months. The text and language in them is part of my thought process as I try to construct the picture plane for the viewer’s eye. Titles like “Oil Spill”, and Velasquez- Massacre of the Innoncents, are attempts that I have made to try to situate myself in an art historical context. It  also ties in to what the world subjects  me to today. The bright “in your face” coulours are nonetheless my way of offering beauty to the spectateur, for whom I paint.” – Adrienne Fonda