My first impression, at this year’s emerging design exhibition at the Gladstone Hotel, which is titled Come Up To My Room, was that it wasn’t quite as strong as the past few years.

UA Collective. All photos: VoCA. Click on images to enlarge.

Looking through my photos, though I’m not sure that’s the case. The work is different, more conceptual perhaps. Overall, it’s more white so at first it all appears very similar. But really there is a broad range of intriguing beginnings of ideas that one hopes are pursued further by the artist-designers who created them.

Gareth Bate. Click on images to enlarge.

Gareth Bate. Click on images to enlarge.

There was promising young artist Gareth Bate, whose installation Jewel Net of Indra consisted of portraits painted on small silver mirrored discs. Figures as varied as Bob Marley and Terry Fox were featured – their only similarity being their celebrity.

Wendy Fok. Click on images to enlarge.

Wendy Fok. Click on images to enlarge.

Geo-Cognition by Wendy Fok was a spare installation of what looked like an exaggerated moulding curving around the floor and walls of one room. This was offered as a kind of riddle “There are 4 cities here – can you find them?” asked the designer. The answer is in the shadows, which depict the skylines of cities including Hong Kong and Manhattan. Interesting how closely the brain and the eyes are connected.

[R]ED[U]X LAB. Click on images to enlarge.

[R]ED[U]X LAB. (detail) Click on images to enlarge.

Two rooms – all white – by Ryerson’s [R]ED[U]X LAB and VAERY STUDIO, transform their spaces almost entirely. The first involves fabric stretched over a series of custom fabricated plastic bits bound together with elastic bands. When I was in the room, one of the designers was asked where they envision this piece being used in an interior. They don’t, they answered. It was more about experimenting with spaces, seeing things differently, which seemed to be a theme that ran throughout the show.

VAERY STUDIO. Click on images to enlarge.

The second room used the window as a focal point from which fabric stretched dramatically outward. The actual room was completed transformed. Very simple, very effective.

UA COLLECTIVE. Click on images to enlarge.

UA COLLECTIVE. Click on images to enlarge.

UA COLLECTIVE. Click on images to enlarge.

One installation, by UA Collective, featured a printing press of sorts. The walls were papered with printed kraft paper featuring fun, of-the-moment sayings like ‘LESS IS A BORE’ and ‘WHAT ARE YOU SUSTAINING?’

Interstice Studio. Click on images to enlarge.

Interstice Studio. Click on images to enlarge.

In the lobby was a neat idea for what I can only call ‘wall jewellery’. It was actually a ceiling installation made by Interstice Studio, a shimmering net of paperclips. Lovely.

Last but not least were two wildcard objects. In one room was a busy little installation by Tinsel & Sawdust, (below) but what I loved was how the painting and carpet seemed to be mirror images of one another. An idea with tons of potential, IMHO.

Tinsel & Sawdust. Click on images to enlarge.

Lost Nation Design. Click on images to enlarge.

And then there was this crazy piece (above) by Lost Nation Design. There were faint lights glittering inside the canvas sac. I have no idea what it was actually for, but it sat at the end of the hallway like an exotic creature. Huh.

The other day, I visited artist Paulette Phillips at her home in Toronto, to be interviewed for her upcoming artwork. Called The Directed Lie, it involved being put to the test – the lie detector test.

Me with Paulette Phillips, undergoing the polygraph. All images: Scott Barker/VoCA

Phillips has trained as a professional polygraph technician in the United States, and owns a polygraph machine, which is cleverly disguised as a suitcase, but it’s the real deal. I don’t know why, but I surprised that it was such an authentic experience, complete with blood pressure and respiration monitors, and carefully considered questions.

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I visited artist Josh Malcolm in his studio this afternoon. His large oils on canvas were everywhere, and I found them very intriguing. They are very high energy – Malcolm says he’s inspired by European and American expressionist painting. But they’re quite different, and quite challenging. At first glance, they looked, to me very modern…but sort of unfinished.

In the studio. All images: VoCA

Cartoon limbs stuck out everywhere in an homage to Phillip Guston, and there are raw, stripey brushstrokes at funny angles across many canvases. I was struck by one piece in particular. It was a black painting, with several arms tangled up and a large swipe of paint crudely smeared across the bottom of the canvas and what looks to be a palette knife a the far side. It make me think of a fist fight.  More precisely, it seemed as if the artist was fighting with himself.

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Hi everyone,

Wow – great response to THIS article in today’s Toronto Star!

To subscribe to ARTBOMB please go HERE. and click ‘SUBSCRIBE’ at the bottom of the page.

Artists – to submit your work, please email carsonandrea@hotmail.com with a link to your website or low res images and ‘artbomb’ in the subject line. Toronto artists only (for now) please. More info HERE.

Thanks!

AC

I went to see the new show at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art the other day.

I discovered that since they have begun collaborating with the National Gallery of Canada, they no longer allow dogs inside, which was an unfortunate discovery for Hudson, who was with me.

Faith La Rocque, Crystal Ladder, 2011. All images: VoCA

Anyway, I found the work on view to be fresh and exciting! When all of a sudden you see work like this you realize something special is going on. There’s an energy here that I haven’t seen in the city for some time. Bravo to curator Camilla Singh for bringing it all together.

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The other day, I stopped in at the studio of Toronto artist Francisco Gomez.

A detail from Empire of Dust, Macca, 2009. All images: VoCA

Born in Caracas Venezuela, he moved to Canada in 1991 and studied at OCAD. Gomez generally works in ink and pastel on mylar – an unusual combination that Gomez tells me is difficult, since the pastel resists the mylar after a certain point, but it’s a very clean, effective look. I can see why he likes it.

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The other week I dropped in to see one of my new favorite galleries, General Hardware Contemporary, in Parkdale. Not only was owner Niki Dracos super friendly, happily accompanying me in my rush around the gallery (I was late for a talk at Art Toronto) but I was really impressed by the work.

Paintings by Anahita Rezvani-Rad. All images: VoCA

R.M. Vaughn is right, in his Globe and Mail review, that we don’t see these kinds of shows often enough in Toronto and when we do, it’s with relief to those of us who deplore the art scene’s typical back-patting. As Vaughn points out, what makes it so vital is that it is work “seen through the eyes of artists experiencing displacement (internal or geographic) from their homelands.”

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One of Canada’s most important collections of vintage and modern photography will go on view at the University of Toronto Art Centre in the new year.

Peter Henry Emerson. A Stiff Pull, ca. 1886, photomechanical process, photogravure. Image:utac.utoronto.ca

The Malcolmson Collection, which I can tell you is a spectacular, very special selection of rare photographs,  is comprised of work dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the present and includes work by Gustave Le Gray, Eugene Atget, Man Ray and many others.

A Man Ray photograph from the Malcolmson Collection. Image:meandmymamiya.com

The exhibition, which will feature selections from the collection, is curated by Heather Diack to examine the relationships “that are created between individuals and photographs and between individuals within photographs.”

On top of that, it’s good to think about the earliest days of photography, long before digital processes and consider all that was involved for these artists to capture an image. There was a connection to the experience and an artistry that we just don’t see as much anymore. It’s as if they were in awe of their subject, and I guess they were. Today technology allows us to dominate nature – you can see it everywhere in contemporary art. I wonder what the effects of this will be. What would McLuhan say?

In any case, this should certainly be a show worth seeing. More information is HERE.

I stopped by the studio of young painter Rob Davidovitz the other afternoon. Rob doesn’t paint in the traditional sense, though. Instead he uses paint to create these textile/painting hybrids.

A woven painting by Rob Davidovitz. All images: VoCA

He mixes paint colours in a kind of pastry tube (more on that below) and squeezes it out in long lines, like thread. Each ‘thread’ incorporates its own mix of colour that blends nicely in the final piece.They he lets the paint dry and weaves the strips, which he attaches to board. Pretty simple.

Another view.

The work may not be terribly mature (yet) -  he’s a young guy, but it’s beautiful, and an interesting approach when you consider other artists who have used paint in a sculptural way – I’m thinking of Kim Dorland‘s earlier work, for one. It’s also interesting that Davidovitz cites the poured paint sculptures of feminist artist Lynda Benglis as an influence. His woven paintings do come off as strangely feminist, meaning that one can comfortably view them through the lens of feminist art–weaving being a traditionally ‘feminine’ craft.

The works are seductive – Davidovitz encourages you to touch and bend them; they’re not delicate.

The back of the work. The paint is glued to the board.

Davidovitz went to art school with plans to be a photographer. Believe it or not, he was working in a bakery, making a cake when he came up with the idea of pushing paint through a piping bag. Shortly thereafter he began experimenting, and eventually perfected the technique..

Three smaller finished works.

Are the works paintings or textiles? “I weave paint,” says Davidovitz. He’s been showing here and there (including at Toronto’s Textile Museum) since he graduated in 2005 and is currently preparing for a group show titled Hard Twist at the Gladstone Hotel which opens on November 25th. The exhibition, all textile-based work by 40 artists, will feature his largest work to date, an enormous piece that weighs over two hundred pounds and involved over twenty gallons of paint to create.

This is good – he should be encouraged to think big and beyond, the way Benglis does.

The artist with a single strand from his Gladstone Hotel piece.

Some small strands.

The weaving process.

An early, experimental work.

“Saint Helen,” says new gallery owner Daniel Faria of the name of his opening exhibition, “is the patron saint of new discoveries.”

A fitting choice then, for his gallery – a former auto body shop, and a place where, as he points out, collectors will discover new and exciting artists.

The beautifully scripted title of Daniel’s inaugural show. All images: VoCA

It’s a beautiful space and up to the high standard of Monte Clark, in whose gallery he previously worked (eventually going into partnership with Monte) and where I met him in 2003 when we worked together in the early days of Toronto’s Distillery District.

Although I missed the opening bash, Shinan was there and so were tons of others, apparently. Dan is an excellent dealer and I know he’ll be a big success, especially with the artists that he’s already representing.

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