Winnipeg-born, Montreal-based visual and performance artist Daniel Barrow, winner of the 2010 Sobey Art Award, was recently awarded the coveted 2013 Glenfiddich Artist-in-Residence Prize, valued at over $20,000. VoCA contributor Catherine Toews had a chance to speak with Barrow via e-mail and he was kind enough to share his plans for the residency, insight into his creative process, and advice
Read more…
Here’s another review from Victoria-based contributor Catherine Toews. Catherine is an artist, graphic designer, writer, and cultural sector worker. TRACES is on view at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria until April 21, 2013. Daniel Barrow, installation view, The Thief of Mirrors, 2012. Mixed media projection installation. Photo courtesy of the artist When I was an art student in Winnipeg,
Read more…
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
Read more…
While it’s clear that Canada has some thriving art scenes in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, the issue continues to be the comparatively weak market for contemporary art. We have Nuit Blanche in Montreal and Toronto (which is a good start) and we have art fairs for collectors, but the question is how to get the average non-art person visitng
Read more…
If You’re in the Hood…. Scott Massey, Two Yellow Lines, 2006. Image: Helenpittgallery.org In Vancouver, I just got word of a video projection exhibition that will happen on March 18 at W2 Storyeum, 151 W. Cordova. The show is the work of a new not-for-profit called Drop Out Video Arts that has brought together artists, artsworkers and musicians to create
Read more…
The third biennial national portrait competition, the Kingston Prize, is accepting submissions until April 29, and this year, the prize is being doubled to $20,000. Marina Dieul, Le défi, oil on panel. Image: kingstonprize.ca The prize is a wonderful project of the Kingston Art Council (and by the way, it’s supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.) Andrew Valko of
Read more…
Toronto artist Micah Lexier is everywhere these days. A view of Micah Lexier’s installation I Am the Coin, at BMO in Toronto. Image: iamthecoin.com Not only did he have new work in a recent show at his Toronto dealer, Birch Libralato, he has a just-opened year-long installation at the Bank of Montreal’s Project Room titled I am the Coin –
Read more…
Great curatorial minds think alike, it seems. After what seems like an interminably long period of preciousness with Toronto’s starchitect-designed art spaces at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum, the gloves are off. Both institutions have invited artists to literally destroy gallery walls. The gorgeous, Frank Gehry-designed AGO. Image: seanjohn.com At the AGO, the glorious collages
Read more…
We snuck in on the final day to see the Cut/Paste: Creative Reuse in Canadian Design show at the Royal Ontario Museum this past weekend, and, while the huge gallery spaces overwhelmed the design objects on display, there were a few things of particular interest, like objects that prison inmates had ingeniously cobbled together: water-boilers and crudely made toaster, to
Read more…
Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Nul/Flirting with the Puck 2008. Image: canadianart.ca 1. Kinetic works by the former Sobey Art Prize winner Jean-Pierre Gauthier at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia from December 18, 2009 to March 15, 2010. A drawing by Dan Perjovschi. Image: romanianculturalcentre.org.uk 2. The curators at the ROM finally see the light and bring in Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi
Read more…
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...