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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nInstallation view of Miho Sawada, Exhibition of Works<\/em>. Courtesy of Gallery 1313<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saraby\u2019s exhibition in the Cell Gallery is comprised of small sculptures of boats modelled from vintage domestic irons, and ten, what we shall calls \u2018paintings\u2019 on boards. She has had a decades long career in interior design and as a professor. Consequently she is very familiar with a variety of industrial processes employed in the craft of art and design. She does not constrain herself to one medium as many traditional artists do. Instead Saraby explores many production techniques and materials. Her paintings are testament to this fact.<\/p>\n\n\n Viz Saraby with her works at the Cell Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are several stages in the production of her paintings \u2013 hence my reluctance to describe them as paintings as such. First, she has shot a series of photos of the quayside and boats located in the Georgian Bay town of Meaford where she resides. The images are digitally distorted. Next she uses a laser printer to etch an image onto a piece of birch veneered plywood. Then she paints the board to bring back the image. Finally the surface is treated in order to give it a uniform lustre. The pallette \u2013 ochres, sepia and other earthy colours, \u2013 Saraby tells us in her artist\u2019s statement, is deliberately reminiscent of old master paintings, or at least how we imagine them.<\/p>\n\n\n Viz Saraby, Boats 07, Docked<\/em>, painting on birch veneered plywood, 23 x 23 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the final look of these works is not wholly deliberative. Rather what ultimately comes out is informed by the materials and techniques she uses. Birch plywood, for instance, has a naturally warm tone that is accentuated by the the pallette she chooses. Also, the distortion she applies to the imagery is encouraged by the digital software Saraby employs. That is not to suggest she produces the work unreflectingly, but instead it is to point out that she enters into a dialogue with her chosen materials and techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n Viz Saraby, Boats 02, Heavy Weight<\/em>, painting on birch veneered plywood, 23 x 23 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n These images remind me of David Hockney\u2019s photomontages, where he took a series of close up photos of a subject \u2013 a person, a landscape etc., \u2013 and created a collage from them. In Hockney\u2019s case, very often there is a temporal element to the photomontages given that the subject is taken over a period of time. This adds to the distortion of the finished overall image, giving it a cubistic quality. For Saraby, on the other hand, each image originates from a single photo, so there is a unique point of view in each. The distortion she creates digitally is therefore wholly perspectival \u2013 the boats and landscape are bent and warped until the viewer is disorientated. The everyday becomes slightly grotesque, disturbing. But all the time the image is integral or continuous.<\/p>\n\n\n Viz Saraby, Boats 01, Teeter<\/em>, painting on birch veneered plywood, 23 x 23 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n I noted how Saraby works by entering into a dialogue with the materials and techniques she chooses. This essentially experimental approach is not confined to pictures. In this show she also presents seven boats modelled out of old clothing irons. Indeed, there is an affinity between the overall shape of an iron and a boat that she exploits here. Nonetheless, there is a child-like quality to these sculptures, given that the irons are only minimally altered, so that the viewer must fill in the gap between these two otherwise disparate items, i.e., imagine the irons as boats \u2013 just as a child, for instance, might imagine a large pile of dirt as a mountain. This imaginative dimension, combined with the toy-sized scale of the sculptures, makes them quite charming and playful pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n