On View in Person & Online
November 10 – December 5, 2020

Walk-ins Welcomed! 

Lonsdale Gallery is pleased to present Life Cycles, a solo exhibition by Moira Ness, in the gallery’s project room.

On View in Person & Online
Nov 10 – Dec 5, 2020

Walk-ins Welcomed! 

Lonsdale Gallery is pleased to present Life Cycles, a solo exhibition by Moira Ness, in the gallery’s project room.

Moira Ness Life Cycles,
Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery

Moira Ness’ ongoing series of paintings, Personal Cyclic Models, offers a deeply conceptual and metaphysical exploration of memory and the passage of time. Ness creates minimalist compass-like paintings, using data mined from digital archives of personal communication, such chat logs, social media, and emails. She does this to chart the movements of individuals through and around her life over the past two decades. The artist’s use of circular forms to order her paintings conveys a sense of temporal continuity through cyclical repetition. Ness’s formal and conceptual exploration of the circle insists that nothing in life is static; rather, it is recurring, circadian, and rhythmic.

Personal Cyclic Model
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

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Moira Ness Life Cycles,
Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery

2012
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

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In this series, the artist examines interpersonal relationships – friendships, infatuations, muses, and lovers – to process the past, while looking forward towards the future. Ness adopts the circle and its historical symbolic significance in helping answer humanity’s search for meaning.
Each circle denotes a year and each colour, a person. The length and thickness of the bands of colour illustrate the duration and impact of her relationships. Moving from the outer ring towards the center, each layer captures the artist’s objective, subjective, and subconscious states during that twelve-month period.

2018
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

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2017
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

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“My obsession with data accuracy and detail gives no allowance for misinformation or exaggeration […] This format funnels archived information into decipherable graphs, which enable me to recall and ultimately mentally process my past.”

Moira Ness

In this series, the artist examines interpersonal relationships – friendships, infatuations, muses, and lovers – to process the past, while looking forward towards the future. Ness adopts the circle and its historical symbolic significance in helping answer humanity’s search for meaning.

2012
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

Inquire
Each circle denotes a year and each colour, a person. The length and thickness of the bands of colour illustrate the duration and impact of her relationships. Moving from the outer ring towards the center, each layer captures the artist’s objective, subjective, and subconscious states during that twelve-month period.

2018
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

Inquire

“My obsession with data accuracy and detail gives no allowance for misinformation or exaggeration […] This format funnels archived information into decipherable graphs, which enable me to recall and ultimately mentally process my past.”

Moira Ness

2017
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
30 x 30 inches

Inquire

Moira Ness Life Cycles,
Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery

A Man A Man A Man
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
24 x 60 inches

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The paintings are arranged to evoke a clock face, or a sundial, highlighting the artist’s visual investigation of temporality and change. While the notion of time as being linear, continuously moving forward, is a product of modern Western culture; earlier concepts of time have been based primarily on the cyclical recurrence of cosmic and earthly processes. Thus, Ness’ design of the rings beckons the viewer to look inward. Set against a solid flesh-toned background, intimating the artist’s skin, Ness’ compositions call to mind the notion of the passage of time as an indelible mark inscribed on the body. Ness offers a thoughtful approach for examining both personal and shared collective experiences – the drive for connection, community, continuity and gratification.

Moira Ness Life Cycles,
Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery

By mapping events within her circuitous forms, the artist visualizes interactions, and events as a continuous process of eternal return. Like a snake eating its own tail, it fosters the outlook that experiences and phenomena will persist to recur across infinite time or space, allowing one to be freed from a perceived notion of control and, thus, thrive in the present.

24, 85, 65, 9 (2008 & 2018)
2020
acrylic and vinyl on panel
48 x 48 inches

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Moira Ness Life Cycles,
Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery

ABOUT THE ARTIST
MOIRA NESS is an interdisciplinary visual artist working and living in Toronto. She utilizes text and image-based algorithms to help create her paintings and digital art. Ness creates ascetic and conceptually-driven work concerned with relentless archiving, pattern generation, and tracing comprehensive lines through her own personal history. The artist has exhibited her work extensively throughout North America, at both private and public galleries, such as Koerner Hall at The Royal Conservatory of Toronto, The Los Angeles Center For Digital Art, Akasha Art Projects, Lakeshore Arts, Northern Contemporary, Gallery 44, Roman Susan Gallery, Red Head Gallery, Latcham Gallery, The Art Gallery of Mississauga, Narwhal Contemporary, The Gladstone, OCAD University, Main Street Arts, Kunstwerk Carlshütte, and The CICA Museum.

Moira Ness Life Cycles,
Project Room, Lonsdale Gallery

 

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