The exhibition has been extended until May 9, 2010.

Featuring works by: Ruth Adler, Jamie Bradbury, Ray Caesar, Steve Fleury, William Mokrynski, Julie Oakes, Mabel Odessey, Peggy Taylor-Reid, Ilan Wolff, Pedie Wolfond and more!

Lonsdale Gallery is entering its fifteenth year in Toronto. Over this time Lonsdale has fostered the careers of many great artists and worked to achieve its mandate to exhibit works that challenge interpretation and elicit reaction: contemporary painting, sculpture, experimental photography and installation.

This exhibition serves as an homage to the shows and artists who have helped to make our gallery what it is today and to the new talents who will be part of our future. For our celebration, we are showcasing a selection of just some of the great artists we have had the pleasure of working with. Please join us for the opening reception for special presentations and performances.

Featured Artists:
Ruth Adler, Nadia Amoroso, George Boileau, Jamie Bradbury, Cathy Daley, Maurice Ducret, Sheila Gregory, Osheen Harruthoonyan, Phil Irish, Philip Iverson, Joan Kaufman, Nobuo Kubota, Amanda MCavour, Alex McLeod, William Mokrynski, Julie Oakes, Mabel Odessey, Liz Pead, Jim Reid, Gretchen Sankey, Peggy Taylor-Reid, Tyler Vipond, Francesca Vivenza, Jay Wilson, Ilan Wolff, Pedie Wolfond

Since moving to Toronto from New York in 2005, Julie Oakes has been using spiritual narratives derived from Eastern iconography to create her art. Her body of works is based on a simple premise: In order to empty the mind, it is necessary to liberate from all disturbances – yet the world is rife with distractions. Oakes introduces elements that serve a dual purpose of both constructing a new visual reality and maintaining a composed balance.

The work in Genesis will include pieces from The Buddha Composed (2008), The Life Screen (eight silk screen images that form two sides of a Shoju screen were designed to recognize the serendipitous combinations and variety in life) and The Weeping Monkey (a bronze piece where the Buddhist trickster, and also the lowliest of the primates, weeps in a pool of his own tears).

New work consisting of gouaches, ceramics and bronzes elaborate on biblical beginnings that culminate in the installation The Ark. The mythical Ark, having floated for aeons, has finally come to rest and the animals are descending upon a sweeping curve to land on the floor of the gallery. With fifty species modeled in clay, The Ark is part of a larger installation titled Swounds proposed for the Canadian Clay and Glass Museum that addresses the sense of disconnection that resides in the correlation between a loving God and the reality of violence and death. For more images, visit julieoakes.com.

Oakes combines the philosophical with a modern trend towards spectacle.

Jamie Bradbury
Osheen Harruthoonyan
Bogdan Luca
Amanda McCavour
Alex McLeod

Peep Show is a preview of the next wave of Lonsdale Gallery programming. Showcasing cutting edge artists who work in a variety of media: painting, fiber, installation and digital media. Alongside these works, profiles on each artist will appear to give context to their present and future projects. Peep Show will be open for the 2009 Gallery Hop.

Jamie Bradbury is a painter who is redefining ideas of realism with his figurative watercolour paintings. His use of dense texture of watercolour paint in his compositions is not seen in many artists who use the medium. Jamie draws inspiration from street culture to give unique insights about his generation. In the fall of 2009 Jamie will be leaving for the UK to study at the Central Saint Martins School as an MFA candidate.

Bogdan Luca is an oil painter who explores the boundaries of his media through ideas of the human form.Through his figurative practice Bodgan plays with concepts of distortion, repetition, perspective and even complete disintegration of the form. Currently, Bogdan is going into his final year for his MFA with the University of Toronto’s Visual Studies Program.

Osheen Harruthoonyan is a photo based artist who uses various analogue printing processes to layer, texture and work into both found and personal photographs to create ambiguous narratives which imbue feelings of nostalgia. In 2008, Osheen’s exhibition was chosen as one of the Globe & Mail’s ‘Top 5 Shows Not to Miss’ for CONTACT Photography festival, and is currently being recognized by Bravo!’s ‘Arts & Minds’ as a top young photographer to watch.

Amanda McCavour is a fibre artist who specializes in thread drawings. In Amanda’s works, thousands of threads are drawn together to define images such as figures and birds. Currently, Amanda holds a residency at the Harbourfront Centre’s fibre studio. Most recently, Amanda was given an award by the Ontario Craft Council for her fibre work. Later this year, Amanda’s work will be featured in the illustrious Cheongju International Biennale in South Korea.

Alex McLeod is an artist who is preoccupied with landscapes. His work is built in digital space, using computer software generally used for film and advertising. In his digital worlds toy cabins and snowcapped mountains appear as if they could be leftovers from bizarre train sets. Through his new digital form of image making, Alex is pioneering a new form of fine arts. Alex has recently been included in the Magenta Foundation publication Carte Blanche 2.

EXTENDED BIOS AND ARTISTS’ IMAGES COMING SOON…

Joan Kaufman
William Mokrynski
Mabel Odessey
Ilan Wolff

The focus of this year’s Contact Photography Festival is Still Revolution, an attempt to address ideas of conceptual and technological advancements in photography. Since it’s conception, Lonsdale Gallery has strived to give representation to photographers who stretch the boundaries of their media through new processes as well as embracing and reviving obscure or obsolete technologies. As a response to this year’s theme we are proud to present Illusion, Transformation, Creating the Impossible.

Artists Joan Kaufman, William Mokrynski, Mabel Odessey and Ilan Wolff use photography as a means of constructing still and moving images for illustrating the fantastic and the bizarre. While photography has been viewed historically as a means of documentation, using a variety of technologies, these artists alter their subjects through photo manipulation, digital processes, or simple multiple pinholes to invent new realities.

image credit: Joan Kaufman, Suspended Series 1.2, digital output on archival media, 2009

Responsive Space

In the Critique of Judgment, philosopher Immanuel Kant described the vastness of nature as one of the few physical examples that illustrates ideas of the infinite. He believed that the forces of nature were powerful enough to display that which was beyond human reason.

We feel the effects of the sublime in the stories and legends that shape our culture. In fairytales or Romantic writing, the landscape is used like a character to describe the emotion or psychology of the scene. Added to this is the tradition of landscape as artist’s subject- attempts to capture the sublime through art.

Responsive Space calls to question these concepts by creating new ways to approach environments. Artists Alex McLeod, Laura Paolini, Stacey Sproule and Stanzie Tooth use landscape as an entry point to create their work, employing symbols and metaphors from the natural world as signifiers of the sublime in nature as well as our human reactions and affects on landscapes.

In an era where the human affects on the ecology of the planet are continually brought to question, we sometimes fail to stop and think about the majesty of nature. Responsive Space offers glimpses for new worlds beyond our everyday experience. Working in a variety of media, the common thread amongst these artists is an interest in the fragile connections shared between humans and nature. Like the stories from our childhoods, these artworks make sentiments about the sublime in our natural world. The morals of these pieces then, like fairytales, are dependent on our being drawn into the worlds they create.

Alex McLeod is an artist who is preoccupied with landscapes. His work is built in virtual space, using computer software generally used for film and advertising. In his digital worlds toy cabins and snowcapped mountains appear as if they could be leftovers from train sets. He has recently been included in the Magenta Foundation publication ‘Carte Blanche 2′. www.alxclub.com

Laura Paolini graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design, holding a BFA with Distinction from the Sculpture/Installation Department in the Faculty of Art. Her theses on problematics in the history of art have appeared in arts based publications (both student and professional) and her artwork is succinct with the various responsibilities she holds professionally. Laura is the Intern and Projects Coordinator at Vtape, and she is the newest member on the Board of Governors for FADO Performance Art Inc. In Fall 2008, Laura joined the Media Lab at the Canadian Film Centre as an artist-in-residence. Produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council
www.laurapaolini.com

Stacey Sproule is a performance and installation artist with an interest in tactility. Graduated from OCAD in 2007, she has a BFA in drawing and painting and has exhibited locally for four years. Her installations have been exhibited at Wynick Tuck Gallery, Xpace, and Awkward Gallery. In 2007, Stacey Sproule and Diane Borsato collaborated on a piece for FADO. Stacey also collaborates frequently with Randy Gagne including a performance at the 2008 Toronto International Art Fair and one at 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art.
www.staceysproule.blogspot.com

Stanzie Tooth is a painter with an interest in landscapes and figuration. Stanzie graduated from OCAD in 2007 with a BFA in Drawing and Painting with an award of distinction for excellence in painting. Many of the narratives in her work have been shaped by her upbringing in rural Ontario and have been exhibited throughout Toronto. Most recently, her series, “Through the Woods” was featured at the Canadian Heritage Building.
www.stanzietooth.com

*concept design image. photo by unknown artist