Exhibitions 2007
Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant: Drawing Exhibition
November 3, 2007 -- December 19, 2007
The 2007 Juried Exhibition promotes both emerging and seasoned Ontario artists through the presentation of their work. This year the exhibition explored the media of Drawing. The show portrays the range of approaches to drawing from the structuring of an idea to the development of composition as a prelude to a future work. Artists give form to psychological states and work within an immediacy of expression.
For some artists it’s the scratching through or subtraction of line. Some works are complete within themselves and look to a clear mode of communication. Narrative drawings are informed by personal experiences, while others celebrate the media as expression. Gauze drawing replaces the hard medium, and architectural renditions celebrate draftsmanship. Garner Beckett’s DVD is a “sketchbook come to life.“ All of the works acknowledge gesture and rhythm.
Jurors, Julie Oakes, Artist and Curatorial Assistant of the Headbones Gallery in Toronto and Peter Kirkland, Hamilton Artist who exhibited at Glenhyrst in 2006 selected the work for the show.
The artists include, Rey Baecher, Aleks Bartosik, Garner Beckett, Tyler Bright Hilton, Oksana Bumstead, Kawong Chung-Shipman, Vivian Darroch-Lozowski, Brad Emsley, Ryan Gibson, Birte Hella, Robin Hesse, Scott Jensen, Betty Kaser, Fleur-Ange Lamothe, Gordon Leverton, Ramune Luminaire, Wilek Markiewicz, Mori McCrae, Derek McLarty, Ortansa Moraru, Lynne Munro, Helena Pravda, Barbara Rehus, Michelle M. Salter, David Samila, Ram Samocha, Steve Spears, Cole Swanson.
Awards include a tied Jurors Choice Award to Aleks Bartosik for Incurable Indecency, pencil on paper 246 x 306 cm. and to Ortansa Moraru for her series of Nests l, ll and lll each in pastel, 100 x 70 cm. The Award of Merit was given to Garner Beckett for his DVD, A Regular Day and the Honourable Mention went to Tyler Bright Hilton for Leap Alone, mixed media on mylar, 46 x 61 cm.
The People's Choice Award, sponsored by Brian Stephen of Scotia McLeod went to Derek McLarty for his work The Shadow and the Light.
A Sense of Space: The Blind Culture
August 4 -- October 28, 2007
Exhibition Reception:
Sunday, September 16, 2007 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.A Sense of Space explores alternate ways of seeing by visually impaired and sighted artists from Canada, United States and the United Kingdom. At Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant we study Cultural Identity through biannual exhibitions. The visually impaired culture has for the most part been unexplored territory through the arts. The exhibition, A Sense of Space, reveals a new way of seeing to sighted viewers while also being accessible to the visually impaired. The work is interactive and tactile and includes; audio works, painting, sculpture and installation that can be explored through touch, sight, and sound.
Canadian artists from Toronto include; Erika James who has created a series of textile work called Big Toys, an installation of fabric with inflatable components that have a variety of textures and audio elements. Max Streicher sews giant, inflated floating figures that viewers can walk amongst and Susan Szenes uses reclaimed material illustrating a bird’s eye view of urban life. From Ottawa is the work of Ryan Lotecki whose textured stained glass windows incorporate Braille text in poetic verse. Meg Lauder, of Vancouver, presents an eccentric look at eye patches as decorative garments that become a conduit to communication, understanding and tolerance. Also from Vancouver, Alison Hodson uses textile and photographic illusionary combinations that question both sighted and visually impaired perception.
Stephen Handschu from Chicago creates sculpture using power tools. With 5% vision he sees his work as shadow, space and volume as he forms his figures with 100% of his tactile perception.
Nicola Green's (Edinburgh, UK), 'The Laughing Record', is a playable vinyl record of people from a variety of cultures, ages and continents - laughing - to illustrate a tapestry of identities through sound.
Braille and English text and an audio tour accompanies the show. We gratefully acknowledge the support of W. Ross Macdonald School. The artist Erika James thanks the Ontario Arts Council for their assistance.
Exhibition & Related Programmes are sponsored by S.C. Johnson.
Exhibition Related Programmes
All events are free except where stated.
Walk the Labyrinth -- experience your own sense of space
September 16, 2007 1:00 p.m. (outdoors, lower gardens)Meet the Artists Reception
September 16, 2007 2:00 -- 4:00 p.m. (gallery)Artist Lecture “Inquiries” with Stephen Handschu
September 16, 2007 2:00 p.m. (outdoors)A Form & Space Workshop with Karen Bell
September 16, 2007 3:00 -- 5:00 p.m. (outdoors in tents)Comedian/Inspirational Speaker, Gord Paynter
Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:00 p.m. (Coach House)
ETUDES STUDIES: drawing, painting, sculpture
Karen Fletcher and Isabella Stefanescu
May 26 -- July 29, 2007
Exhibition Reception: Sunday, June 3, 2007 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Walking Tour by artists @ 3:00 p.m.
Isabella Stefanescu and Karen Fletcher work from the model to create anatomical studies of the human figure. While Isabella draws, Karen builds up clay, informed by the model’s pose. This exhibition expresses the methods of the artists as they look to capture a gesture, a line, and to articulate the tensions and rhythms of the human form. Fletcher says, “An impulse to understand the inherent dynamics of structure within the human body lie at its core.”
Isabella Stefanescu graduated with a fine arts degree from the University of Waterloo. She continues to exhibit her work throughout Southern Ontario in both private and public galleries. She was the founder and organizer of CAFKA, Contemporary Art Forum in Kitchener from 1996-2004, and was on the City of Kitchener Public Art Committee from 1997-2002.
Karen Fletcher has exhibited her work in Ontario and Newfoundland and has her work in seven Public Collections. She received a BA from the University of Waterloo and a BE from the University of Western, London. She has lectured and instructed in the visual arts within University and Secondary School Art Departments.
There are 14 sets of Etudes/Studies, plus an exhibit of the artists’ completed paintings and sculptures. This comprehensive exhibition is an opportunity to see development that leads to accomplished works of sculpture and painting.
Isabella Stefanescu acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
Karen Fletcher acknowledges the support of Waterloo Region assistance.
Earthology: Sculpture by Judy Ivkoff and Fran Freeman
March 17 -- May 20, 2007
Exhibition Reception: Sunday, March 25, 2007 from 2:00 p.m. -- 4:00 p.m.
The phenomenon of the natural world is the source of inspiration for sculptors, Judy Raymer Ivkoff and Fran Freeman. Their distinctive choices of sculptural material and the technical aspects inherent in them influence their individual approach to their subject.
Fran Freeman sows, reaps and transforms peat and plants into plant fibre paper that she shapes over wire forms. Suspended from the ceiling, they look like giant wasp nests or cocoons that expose the viewer to their inner workings. The plant fibre paper is fragile and built up in layers to suggest growth from within as the artist explores nature’s mysteries of birth and death. Freeman’s influences include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, stories from Greek mythology, the Bog People and the Green Man archetype. What these references have in common are their persistence in human memory and their endurance of their imagery over the centuries.
Judy Raymer Ivkoff’s Forest Series is a collection of wood, stone and metal sculptures. Freestanding and mounted on limestone bases they are lyrical, linear, and made of hand-hewn planks of wood. Within them are strategically placed metal fragments that draw the viewer into Ivkoff’s eye for design and richness of materials. Ivkoff has had a lifelong relationship with the wilderness. In the forest she observes, sketches, and reacts to life’s inevitable changes. Her awareness of nature’s fragility and strength, its regeneration and vulnerability are noted in her work through its rugged texture and open spaces.
In a second body of work, Earthbound, Ivkoff works almost exclusively by hand, without power tools. These “series of structures” are table-like wood constructions that hold abstracted bronze forms resting on stone slabs to establish a physical environment. Ivkoff looks for the delicate balance of the vulnerability and endurance that she sees as tensions in nature. Fran Freeman gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council.
Artist Talk and Walking Tour with Judy Raymer Ivkoff
> April 15, 2007 at 2:00 p.m.
Judy Raymer Ivkoff will give a slide presentation that illustrates with quick sketches her emotional response to her treks through the woods that are the inspiration for her sculptures. She will then elaborate about the process of creating wood and bronze sculptures exhibited at the gallery. The presentation will take place in the Coach House building on Glenhyrst grounds and progress to the gallery where Judy will take the group for a walking tour of her exhibition. Everyone is welcome.
medium X process = perception
January 6 -- March 11, 2007
Reception: January 21, 2007 from 2:00 p.m. -- 4:00 p.m.
THE PERMANENT COLLECTION'
One of the strongest momentums for collecting artwork for Glenhyrst’s Permanent Collection was during an affluent culturally supported period from 1972 until 1984 when the Art Gallery of Brant initiated nine national juried Graphex exhibitions. These shows would eventually attract up to 1000 submissions, most of which were original prints.
The exhibition medium X process = perception is a selection of 35 works from the Graphex printmaking acquisitions. The whole stream ofconsciousness from the 1970’s and 80’s was reflected in the Graphex original prints. This show will highlight themes from humour to anguish and compare them to the current art practices of two Brantford printmakers, Robert Creighton and Rose Hirano. Included within the exhibition will be illustrations and concise explanations of the printmaking process.
The hoofed animal was an unusual choice of subject matter repeatedly selected for the collection. Vernon Chilton’s subject was the bovine. His serigraph, The Rite of Spring, is a humourous bow to Henri Matisse’s oil painting, The Dance, from 1910. Gary Olson is another printmaker who was engaged with the image of the cow through etching and lithography. Both of these artists were working in Alberta at the time. Alberta was a hotbed of productive printmaking probably due to the encouragement of the province that embraced all things cultural and developed new art venues and institutions of learning. Otis Tamasauskas also explored animal imagery in his signature style that is removed from realism. In Coyote Sonata, jagged movement and rich surfaces cross over media boundaries with experiments including collage and found objects imbedded into his work that summon up impressions of an environment. He refers to the print makers’ ‘intimacy with the paper to catch a fleeting, fragile idea’.
To exhibit a more inclusive cross reference to reoccurring themes, the emotion of anguish is revealed in the intaglio work by Walter Bachinski, and in the lithographs of Gene Chu and Peter Mah. Distorted perspective is illustrated in the work of Barbara Zeigler-Sunger and David Denyse. Brantford artist, Rick Pottruff’s etching selected in the Graphex 5 (1977) show, Tourist-Terroriste, expresses a relevancy to our current political times. And finally a concentration on colour and form expresses unconscious connections in the abstractions of Charles Ringness, Karen Dugas, Bonnie Sheckter and Walter Jule. These works will reflect how printmakers’ choice of technique and concepts work together to create a stimulating work of art.
> Artist Talk with Robert Creighton: January 21, 2007 3:00 p.m.
> Printmaking Workshop with Rose Hirano: January 28, 2007 9:30 a.m. -- 3:30 p.m.
TWO BRANTFORD PRINTMAKERS
Printmaking is Robert Creighton’s choice of medium because of its expressive qualities and its ‘technical rigors’. He works in intaglio with chine collé. Intaglio is a method of printing on a metal plate using a sharp tool to draw with incised lines. Ink rolled over the plate enters the cut lines and is then wiped from the surface of the plate. The artist uses a printing press to exert pressure over the plate to transfer the ink from the plate to the paper. Chine Collé is a process that introduces tones and texture into an etching by laminating torn lightweight natural fibre paper onto the etched paper through the pressure of the printing press. Creighton’s subject is figurative in a mythological context to describe contemporary life. Robert Creighton’s studio is in Lynden, near Brantford. He also teaches visual art for the Grand Erie District School Board in Brantford, Printmaking at the Dundas Valley School of Art, and is affiliated with The Print Studio in Hamilton.
Rose Hirano creates original reduction wood block prints. She refers to her process as being methodical and meditative. Reduction woodcut is an exacting process in which the artist uses only one block of wood. The block is cut and used to print the first color; that same block is cut again (reduced) and used to print the second color over the first. The artist continues to cut and print until all of the colors have been printed. There is no opportunity to go back to the first color, since the wood has long since been cut away. Hirano’s imagery is landscape in the shape of pathways, fog and shadow in monochromatic hues to enhance the mood. Her subject and technique is a means to explore her own psychological landscape. Hirano is a self taught artist and works from her studio in downtown Brantford.
In association with the exhibition, Robert Creighton will be giving a printmaking talk at the exhibition reception on January 21 at 3:00 p.m. Rose Hirano will be sharing her process through a reduction woodblock printmaking workshop on Sunday, January 28, 9:30 -- 3:30 p.m. Register for the workshop at 519-756-5932.