1. Wonderland, paintings by Rick Leong at Parisian Laundry, Montreal.

January 11 – February 23, 2008

Rick Leong, The Wandering Rain, 2006. Image: parisianlaundry.com

Rick Leong obtained his BFA (with honors) from the University of Victoria and his MFA from Concordia University in 2007.

A third generation Chinese-Canadian, Rick’s beautiful and delicate large-scale landscapes are explorations of Eastern and Western painting traditions. Contrasts and similarities morph into unique imaginary places filling the painted plane with elements of tradition, culture, style, technique, fantasy and reality.

Rick Leong, Fall, 2006. Image: parisianlaundry.com

For the gallery website, please click HERE.

2. Room Tone, an exhibition of new work by Toronto artist Dave Dyment, at MKG 127, Toronto.

January 5 – 2 February, 2008

Dave Dyment, One Minute of Silence, Time-lapse photograph, 2006. This piece is a document of a recording of one minute of silence from Princess Diana’s funeral playing on a turntable, the shutter left open for the duration of the track. Image: davedyment.com.

Room Tone takes its name from the ambient recordings filmmakers use to provide continuous-sounding background.
Dyment, whose practice often deals with silences and near-silences, shows new works in a variety of media that deal with quiet drones, distortion and feedback.

The exhibition continues the artist’s interest in the minute and the infinite, employing sparse and simple concepts with distinctly poetic undertones.

Dave Dyment, White Noise, Silkscreen score & sound recording, 2005. Here, the sheet music from every song on the Beatles double album, commonly refered to as “The White Album”, is silkscreened on top of one another. A companion audio piece takes each track and, using time-stretch software, lengthens or shortens them to their common average length (3:06) and plays them back simultaneously, creating a cacophonous roar through which one can make out traces of the original. A kind of time-lapse audio portrait. Image: davedyment.com

Click HERE for more about Dyment’s work.

For the gallery website, please click HERE

3. Jason Gringler, Various States of Undress, Construction and Repair at Angell Gallery, Toronto.

January 11 – 16 February, 2008

Jason Gringler, Me, 2007, acrylic, collage, spray paint on and behind acrylic sheet with mirror and plexi glass.
Image: angellgallery.com

Dizzying spatial divisions, frenetic urban energy, an industrial palette of silver and black (offset by high-keyed accent colours) continue in Gringler’s abstractions. Shards of mirror reflect the architecture of the space, establishing a connection between the paintings and their site of exhibition.

Jason Gringler, Me (New York remix), 2007, acrylic, collage, and spray paint on and behind plexi with mirror.
Image: angellgallery.com

For more information, please click HERE