The tour starts at Koffler Gallery (Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street) at 12 PM, and then departs for GBlackwood Gallery, Art Gallery of York University and Doris McCarthy Gallery, returning to the Koffler Gallery by 5 pm. Guided tours will be offered at each venue.
Please RSVP by February 24 by emailing dmg@utsc.utoronto.ca blackwood.gallery@utoronto.ca or 905-828-3789. This event is free.
For the second annual In House benefit art show, curated by Sonya Filman, Paperhouse Studio has collaborated with eight emerging and established artists to create new work exploring contemporary approaches to working with handmade paper. These artists, whose practices feature an emphasis on materiality and process, took to working with handmade paper in a myriad of different ways. The resulting works highlight strong interconnections between notions of labour and temporality, contextualized in relation to personal histories, geologic time, and commonplace objects.
The artists: Yael Brotman, Melanie Chikofsky, Doug Guildford, Tessar Lo, Tim Manalo,
Roula Partheniou, Meghan Price, Natalie Wood
Artists’ Panel Discussion: February 24th, 6:00pm at Paperhouse Studio
Opening Reception: February 24th 7:00pm – 10:00pm at Critical Distance Centre for Curators
Silent Auction: Preview and buyout starts February 17. Closes at 8:30pm on February 24. (Event night is bidding only) at the Third Floor Hallway Galleries, Artscape Youngplace
The In House Benefit Art Show will be on view at Critical Distance Centre for Curators from February 24th to 28th, 2017. Gallery hours: 12:00PM - 5:00PM, or and appointment.
Laura Kay Keeling in her studio at Akin Dupont preparing new work for The Artist Project
This year The Artist Project contemporary art fair is celebrating it's 10th year! The show runs Feb 23-26 at the Better Living Centre and will feature work by over 250 incredible artists from Canada and abroad including some Akin Collective studio members!
Laura Keeling of Akin Dupont was one of 20 artists selected from hundreds of applications to be featured as one of the UNTAPPED Emerging Artists. Find her in Booth U-9. Laura's work pulls inspiration from beautiful everyday moments shared through her photography and collage work. She is currently working on a 'HOT ROCKS' series of collages which are composed of gemstone cut outs from old field guides.
Adria Mirabelli of Akin Dupont will be in the Installation Zone, Booth I-09. Adria's practice is driven by an experimental approach to mark-making whereby she integrates textile manipulation processes with drawing to create large-scale, site-specific works on silk, felt, vinyl and paper. Her process focuses on a cycle of collection, preservation, and distortion.
Mila Vukosavljevic of Akin Dufferin will be in Booth 509 . Mila's oil and acrylic work questions the ties between seemingly random human interactions. A flirtation between abstraction and figuration, these works portray the inherent connectivity of mankind.
Michael Vickers of Akin Lansdowne will be speaking in the Art Chats Seminar Series on a panel entitled 'The Art of The Fluid' alongside Salimah Ebrahim, and Reagan Zuzarte. The panel discussion will examine how the confluence of technology, physical space and commerce are blurring traditional divisions today. Check it out Saturday, Feb 25th, 11:30am-12:30pm at The Artist Project. Art Chats are complimentary with admission. Space is subject to availability.
Your health is important! Join us at City Hall for an engaging workshop focusing on your mental health and well-being.
Learn some self-care techniques and strategies to minimize the negative effects of stress, help you feel your best, and boost your self-esteem.
From dealing with stress, demanding schedules and other injuries artists put a lot of strain on their physical and mental well-being. Join Or Har-Gil, Art Therapist, and Fiona Seth from Workman Arts to learn tips to take care of your body and mind.
Space is Limited! Please register to attend at www.universe.com/arthealth
$10 Suggested Donation
About the instructors:
Or Har-Gil is an Art Therapist and Creative Workshop Facilitator who helps people re-ignite their creativity and use it in service of personal discovery and transformation. She facilitates workshops in organizational, healthcare and community settings on managing stress, adapting to change, thinking differently, and embracing imperfection. Or also works part-time at Sunnybrook, leading Art Therapy groups for patients and families at the Odette Cancer Centre. You can find her online at: www.orhargil.com / www.facebook.com/orhargilarttherapy / Instagram: @orhargil
About Workman Arts:
Workman Arts is the longest-running multidisciplinary arts and mental health organization in Canada. Guided by the principal that the creative process is integral to the quest for personal and spiritual development, Workman Arts aims to support artists who have received mental health services to achieve their professional arts goals, by offering multidisciplinary arts training, exhibition opportunities, and studio space to members.
www.workmanarts.com
The Centre for Social Innovation and Toronto for Everyone presents An Honest Farewell, a festival to honor Honest Ed's. This four day festival will feature:
The tour starts at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto (15 King's College Circle) at 12 PM, and then departs for Gallery TPW, Blackwood Gallery, and Oakville Galleries, returning to King's College Circle for 5 PM. Seating is limited.
Please RSVP by 5 PM Friday, February 3 to blackwood.gallery@utoronto.ca or 905-828-3789. This event is free.
Are you an artist contemplating a move into public art? A visual arts professional wanting to understand more about how public art is commissioned in Toronto?
The City of Toronto’s Public Art Office is hosting information sessions to:
Join us on the dates below to engage with the City of Toronto’s public art officers to explore how to take your practice into the public realm. The sessions will include information about how the City commissions public art, and how to effectively respond to open calls.
Talks will also include a case study of an upcoming public art commission so participants can brainstorm ideas and hear real world examples about how a public art project becomes reality.
Coffee and light refreshments provided!
The Queen West Art Crawl is happening on September 23-24, 2017 in Trinity Bellwoods Park. This annual event features a two day exhibition of Ontario artists and artisans. All different artistic media are accepted, including visual art, photography, ceramics, fabric art, hand-made accessories, wood/metal art and jewellers. Artist booth fee is $300 if you apply by February 14, 2017. Artist booth fee is $325 if you apply after February 14. The application deadline is April 1, 2017.
Artists are selected by a jury of prominent community leaders including gallery owners, art professors, journalists and well-established artists. Jury selections are released in early May.
For more information visit www.queenwestartcrawl.com or contact info@queenwestartcrawl.com
WHERE: The Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen Street West, The Sky Yard
WHAT: We are going to get creative AF friends. Let those emotions out using colours and construction paper, and experience the joy you once felt in art class. No artistic experience required. We will be using a mix of collaging and creative writing.
TICKETS: Email info@mindmatters.space for tickets
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Laura Dawe is a painter/director/writer in TORONTO canada. In 2012 she wrote and directed the short DREEMER through the CFC director's lab. it went to SLAMDANCE and was broadcast on IFC. In 2010 she wrote and directed a pre-apocalyptic feature film called LIGHT IS THE DAY.
February 6 / 6:30-8:30pm / City Hall, Committee Room 2
Your health is important! Join us at City Hall as the staff of The Al and Malka Green Artists’ Health Centre (AHC),Toronto Western Hospital, present an engaging workshop focusing on your health and well-being.
From dealing with stress, to repetitive strain injuries, use of harsh chemicals and demanding schedules, artists put a lot of strain on their physical and mental well-being. Join us to learn tips to take care of your body and mind.
Come and meet Susannah McGeachy (Nurse Practitioner) and Dr. Anita Shack (Chiropractor, Craniosacral Therapist, Acunpucture) as they introduce you to the services available and the unique approach at the Artists’ Health Centre. Learn some self-care techniques to minimize the negative effects of stress, help you feel your best, and boost your self-esteem.
Space is Limited! Please register to attend at www.universe.com/arthealth
$10 Suggested Donation
Tonight only - join fashion illustrator and Akin Lansdowne studio member Danielle Meder at Type Books on 883 Queen Street West tonight for a live performance of her book, Draw Fashion Now!
Expect to see some of Danielle's greatest hits from a decade of live runway sketching, hear some wild stories from the fashion week jungles of Paris, London and New York City. Plus, draw along while she performs a tutorial, and watch a fashion illustration appear before your eyes with a live sketching DEMO!
Wait, there’s more – FREE fashion portraits for anyone who buys the book.
This is a FREE event, all are welcome! We would love to see you there!
Wednesday, February 15th / 6:30pm / Akin Lansdowne - Studio 101 - 87 Wade Avenue.
Let’s get intimate! Join us to learn technical clay-making skills and process your Valentine's feelings by making vulva art! Learn the technical sculpting skills of an undervalued, and misunderstood body part through ceramic jewellery making. The workshop will include an introduction to clay, and the female form in art, basic clay making skills, and a lot of giggling and fun! Materials and tools included! The kits will not include the precious metals we use to make our jewelry thought a substitute will be available for purchase.
View samples here: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/CatstacheAccessories
Space is limited, register here: www.universe.com/vulva
$25 Suggested Donation
(Please get in touch if you wish to attend but cannot make a contribution)
About the instructors:
Yara El Safi and Jenelle Madison-Struck are multidisciplinary artists that specialize in vulva jewelry. El Safi receiving her BFA at Western University and Madison-Struck receiving her Fine Arts Degree at Fanshawe College. Their vulva jewelry was inspired by a feminist movement in the 1960s that sought to create a dialog about the female perspective in the art world. Their art aims to empower anyone who identifies with the female body or the vulva, regardless of the preferred gendered pronouns. El Safi and Madison-Struch vulva jewelry is presented as they are, no bleaching necessary. Fifty percent of proceeds from El Safi and Madison-Stuck’s jewelry are donated to Women's Community House in London.
February 9 / 6:30-8:30pm / Akin Lansdowne - Studio 101 - 87 Wade Ave
Come make a Valentines card for your sweetheart, best friend, enemy or a stranger! This is a hands-on work session for you to have some fun with glitter and glue and make a card or two! Bring a friend, a snack, and your creativity!
Participants will be provided with one piece of heavy-duty hemp card stock, cut and scored to make a 4”x6” card as well as a 4”x6” envelope. You can purchase more card stock and envelopes at the event for $0.50 each ($1 per set). We will also have beer for sale!
Pay-What-You-Can, suggested donation of $5. You must register to attend. Click here to register: www.universe.com/cardparty
Some supplies will be provided including:
- cardstock and envelopes
- a variety of coloured paper
- pencil crayons
- spirograph and stamps
- scissors and glue
- cut and paste materials
- glitter and more!
Feel free to bring additional supplies!
Wed Jan 25 / 7-10pm / Akin Lansdowne - 87 Wade Ave - Studio 101
On the last Wednesday of every month Akin hosts a relaxed and fun ‘Show and Tell for Artists’ at one of the Akin Collective studios. This is a time for Akin members and other Toronto artists to show completed works or works in progress and get friendly feedback and answers from their peers in a casual studio setting.
This special edition of the Akin Show & Tell will end at the Territory Orphanage (www.territroy.org) a.k.a. the studio of Allen Morgan on the third floor of 87 Wade Ave with a special surprise for everyone!
Feel free to bring art to share, bring a friend or two, bring snacks or drinks or just bring yourself! Come for the conversation or just to meet people and hang out.
This month we are meeting at Akin Lansdowne - 87 Wade Ave - Studio 101
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch! See you there!
Tuesday Jan 17th, 2017 Social Media Level ll
Location: Sweat & Soda coffee shop, 1091 Queen St. E. Toronto / 6:30-8:30pm
Presenter Nancy Bennett will take you to the next step in using social media to promote your art to an even larger audience.
Participants will have Facebook Page, Instagram and Twitter accounts open and active and bring their laptops or mobile devices to the session in order to participate in class activities.
Tuesday Feb 7th, 2017: Planning Your Show Calendar
Location: Ralph Thornton Centre, 3rd floor, 765 Queen St. E, Toronto / 6:30-8:30pm
There are so many art shows from the large art fairs in Toronto and beyond, to the many outdoor art shows and other home and lifestyle expos where artists can exhibit their artwork. Itcan be very daunting as to which ones to choose and how to manage the shows you are accepted into.This seminar presented by Jamie MacLean will focus on how to find shows, preparing submissions includingapplication processes, artist's statement, bio and images along with planning and budgeting. Plus we encourage attendees to share their personal experiences, good and bad with the group. This will be a very informative night for artists, not to be missed!
Jamie MacLean is a landscape oil painter, becoming passionate about his art in 2004, after a 30 year career in Engineering. He has taken workshops in Algonquin and the Canadian Rockies and is primarily self taught. He tends to bring a business and more structured approach to "selling" his art by doing 15 shows and fairs a year, and keeping stock in 5-6 galleries. Jamie was also chair of the Artists' Network board for 2 years.
For more information email us at info@artistsnetwork.ca or visit our website: www.artistsnetwork.ca
Education Seminars are Free to Artists' Network Members, $25 to Non-Members
Exhibition tour to Mercer Union, the Art Gallery of York University and Oakville Galleries on the ARTbus!
Sunday 22 January 2017, 12:00 pm–5:00 pm
Pick-up and drop-off at Mercer Union (1286 Bloor Street West, Toronto)
$10 donation includes transportation to all galleries and afternoon refreshments.
For reservations, visit oakvillegalleries.com
Monday January 16 / 6:30-8:30pm / Akin Dufferin - 444 Dufferin St - Unit E
$25 per person - all materials included / Get your tickets here: http://universe.com/mosaicworkshop
Learn the foundations of mosaic art using regular and tempered glass as your tesserae*. It's suggested that students bring a collection of small images, text on paper or crafted paper pieces like Washi to include in their mosaic. We will practice an overlay technique using tissue paper, glitter and more. Glass mosaics beautifully and permanently encapsulate your treasures underneath each piece of glass. No prior mosaic knowledge necessary. All levels welcome.
About the Instructor:
Elena Martoglio has been cast over by the magic and beauty of mosaic art since a trip to Barcelona, Spain over a decade ago. She creates exclusive hand made mosaics for homes and has collaborated in unique, public mural projects in Cordoba, Argentina and Toronto. She is a member of the Society of American Mosaic Artists and is currently devising a large mural project this coming Spring, with the arts community is Salmon Arm, BC.
The Akin Vitrine Gallery is excited to present our current exhibition, running for the month of January by Rebecca Jane Houston, a multi-disciplinary artist who works out of Akin Lansdowne.
Rebecca's recent work has been with clay, making plaster casts of “Kee Klamps" and pipe in various clay bodies. This meditation on the form of temporary infrastructure is still in its experimental phase and is shown here in the Akin Vitrine as a work in progress. Rebecca often works for a long time with a particular material or form, and allowing repetition of a joint or object create its own abstract narrative. Sometimes, the process leads towards finished pieces if that seems appropriate, but not always. January’s Vitrine installation will likely shift as different pieces will be experimented with, rejected, altered.
Rebecca has worked in the community arts for many years, sits on the board of Mercer Union and is the proprietor and curator of The Northern Beaver Gallery, a vending machine art project.
The Akin Vitrine Gallery is located at the Clock Factory Building at 1485 Dupont Street (entrance on Campbell Avenue). Find Akin Studio 215 on the second floor and follow the sign into the hallway around the corner. This miniature gallery will feature the diverse talent of Akin Collective studio members with a new installation each month.
The building is open from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, or to arrange a viewing outside of those hours please contact the artist: rebeccajanehouston@gmail.com.
#AkinVitrine
Left: Erin Loree, Cosmic Handheld, 2016
Right: Oliver Pauk, Object #76, 2016
Angell Gallery invites you to join them in 2017 with new exhibitions by Erin Loree & Oliver Pauk! Opening Friday January 13th from 7-9pm. On view from January 13-28.
ERIN LOREE
The paintings in Erin Loree's The Good Glazier are complex abstracts inspired by the Zen concept of "beginner's mind" - an attitude that embraces openness and being in the present moment. The swirling rhythms, glowing colour and bold scale for which she is known are still present, but are further worked through a slow building and removing of paint, resulting in richly layered surfaces that reward extended looking.
The show's title, an inversion of the Baudelaire poem, The Bad Glazier, signals Loree's desire that the new works evoke windows into psychic spaces. To create these visionary portals, Loree begins with veils of transparent acrylic, over which oils are applied, scraped away, then re-applied, using a variety of tools including rags, squeegees, cardboard and brushes. In a process in which intention and intuition are equal partners, painterly instinct both drives decision and embraces accident.
"Each layer is critical because the colour of the layers, and the order in which they are applied, alter how each layer interacts with what exists beneath it," says Loree, who seeks to balance the delicate, carefully considered mark with the bold and spontaneous gesture. The works evolve over time and surfaces are continuously reworked and disrupted, leaving stains and traces of previous marks.
There is much here to occupy both eye and mind. Areas of high gloss jostle patches of velvety matte textures. Thick impasto punctuates broad, fluid strokes. Luminous tones of transparent acrylic contrast with scraped slabs of opaque oils, creating a palpable sense of depth. The darkness that is an inevitable part of the human journey is present, yet counterbalanced by a light that seems to emanate from within the paintings. A 21st century mystic, Loree as The Good Glazier offers viewers a channel into their own inner worlds.
OLIVER PAUK
The artwork of Oliver Pauk engages with the prime constant of our digital environment: entropy. At every stage of its lifespan, and even prior to its creation, a piece of digital media is subject to the tremendous forces of entropy. While the dream of the internet involves navigating a seamless convergence of total information, the actuality much more closely resembles a patchwork of contingent translations between networks and documents, databases and algorithms, filetypes and protocols. A file is selected, uploaded, formatted and compressed; it gets filtered, transmitted, curated, or sorted; it becomes recalled, downloaded, archived, or forgotten. But at each step, something is missed, garbled, or reversed. The seemingly endless, weightless transmission of information in the cloud is, in fact, fuelled by loss.
Beginning with the selection of particular objects with peculiar qualities-broken crystal, pieces of found rubber, plastic mesh, and other detritus-Pauk creates a place of potential through compositions so sensitively assembled as to appear incidental. From here, Pauk slowly and deliberately occludes these configurations, first by painting them in part or whole with a solid color, and then by photographing the results and transforming them digitally through various programs and processes, some automatic and scripted, others painstaking and arduous.
In this way, he excises the images of their most recognizable features while emphasizing what remains, re-enacting and reversing the entropic processes underlying the distribution of digital content. Pauk's doctoring recalls in some ways the artifacts and mispatterning typical of Tauba Auerbach or Wade Guyton, where the interfacing of the artist's hand and mechanical processes yield impromptu abstractions. Pauk does not seem to be interested in accidents, however. The work likewise bears traces of the procedurally-engineered compositions of pioneering digital artists like Frieder Nake and Manfred Mohr, though Pauk is not a process artist. Ultimately, his anti-images have much more in common with the work of Gerhard Richter, whose blurred photorealism and gestural abstraction were both products of careful de-emphasis of the core elements of a recognizable image, what he called the "excess of unimportant information."
The critical absence of this type of information yields another: a kind of metadata of image-making, through which the plainly human recedes and the aggregate characteristics of the work emerge. Unbeholden to the coherence of realism, this aggregate data is translated across dimensions, from space to flatness and back again. Fittingly, Pauk's recent work delves into 3D printing and hydrographics, bleeding-edge technologies that reiterate his transmutational practice, rendering the digital tangible while extruding flat imagery into real space. Thus what Pauk provides are images and objects that have the same physical relationship to reality as all those others that proliferate around us, but which have traversed the digital realm in a completely novel way. From entropy, Pauk finds new forms which could only have been realized through loss.
Text by: Ben Bruneau
Patrick Mikhail Gallery in Montréal is pleased to present “Monument” a new exhibition by Toronto artist (And Akin Lansdowne studio member) Michael Vickers
January 7 to February 25, 2017
Artist reception:
Saturday, January 7, 2017
2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Sometimes watched though too often not, those beating hearts—those ticking clocks.
PATRICK MIKHAIL GALLERY in Montréal is pleased to present MONUMENT, an exhibition of new works by PMG artist MICHAEL VICKERS. The exhibition, the artist’s first solo presentation with the gallery, marks a continued investigation of the sculptural object, while incorporating elements and influences from industrial design, assemblage, and a renewed interest in poetry.
Waterjet-cut metal panels, engraved boulders, and new large-scale installations fill the gallery space, interjected by floral arrangements and tomographic imagery based on MEG and MRI scans created in collaboration with Dr. Karen Davis’ neurology lab at Toronto Western Hospital. In MONUMENT, we find not only a curiosity towards modes of presentation, materials, and differing relationships between objects, but also introspective reflections (both minute and macro- connections) and contemplations riddled through visual decisions and gestures.