- Lip(stick)service
I didn’t realize that arts award season was well and truly upon us until my morning skim of the BBC news feed heralded the announcement of this year’s Turner Prize nominees with the usual distancing panache designed to further mystify contemporary art for the general populace. This year’s opening zinger…
An artist who uses make-up and […]
- Encounters: McMaster Summa 2011
The opening reception of McMaster University’s Summa exhibition of Studio Art graduates is always a crowded affair, and this year was no exception. Even with one of the most restrained selections of work that I’ve seen in recent years, the main floor galleries at the McMaster Museum of Art were so densely packed that it […]
- Idle hands and other essays
I won’t be writing a review of this month’s James North Art Crawl as per my usual practice for the simple reason that I wasn’t in attendance at last Friday’s event. Between the combination of exhibitions being carried over from March and others for which I have already attended openings in the weeks since then, […]
- Michael Allgoewer at b contemporary
The same night I was milling around the reception for Paul Cvetich’s exhibition at transit Gallery, word was circulating about the concurrent opening of b contemporary, a new gallery on James Street North. Whether by choice or circumstance, former transit gallerist David Brace had kept news of this first reception fairly quiet - b contemporary’s […]
- Paul Cvetich at transit Gallery
The visual pleasure that pervades Paul Cvetich’s Ichikupark at transit Gallery is both immediate and fully justified after slower consideration. While the many individual sculptures produce a cacophonous effect from a distance, the writhing shapes of each work slow the eye down when one stops long enough to take in the show one piece at […]
- Prelude to Paul Cvetich
Due in part to writing obligations elsewhere, I’ve been remiss lately in reviewing exhibitions on this blog apart from my drive-by commentary on the monthly Art Crawl here in Hamilton. I’m therefore looking forward to restoring the critical balance around here by bringing in two reviews of exhibitions that opened this past Friday: Paul Cvetich […]
- Family Histories and Luo Li at the 2011 Images Festival
I’ve recently been helping with the non-trivial task of sorting and downsizing my grandmother’s lifetimes-worth of personal possessions in preparation for her move to a retirement home next month. While it’s a melancholy and sometimes dusty sort of job, it’s also one that passes more pleasantly when the owner of all this detritus is still […]
- James North Art Crawl: March
After a run of underwhelming Art Crawls, I went into this month’s iteration with an uncharacteristic swell of optimism, bolstered by the foreknowledge of interesting prospects on the horizon of spring. Thankfully, that instinct proved promising right off the top of the evening with my first visit to The Print Studio and Brendan Fernandes’ (buli).
(Full […]
- Off the Shelf: The DIY artist book edition
I’ve been thinking a lot about artists’ books lately, from future possibilities in my own studio practice to the collection I’ve accrued to date and my wish that more of these beauties were being produced in my immediate creative orbit. Which brings me back around to that impulse to simply do it myself, but that’s […]
- James North Art Crawl: February
I’m tempted to apologize for the lateness of this month’s James North Art Crawl post, but the larger part of me - the part that believes form should follow content hooking up with the part of me made of spite - can’t help but find it fitting that my sluggish pace of blogging follows upon […]
