Opening Sunday, February 2, 2020 / 4 – 6 pm
Peter MacKendrick Community Gallery, Wychwood Barns
Organized by Leah Oates
Featuring work by four Toronto based Artists: Pamela Dodds, Leah Oates, Steve Rockwell and Pierre St-Jacques.
Installation view with works by Steve Rockwell (left) and Pamela Dodds (right). Photo: Leah Oates
Pamela Dodds in her prints, paintings and drawings explores “the complexities of our human relationships, engaging with and exploring the inter-connectedness of humanity across time and space, with a focus on women and women’s agency as a core perspective.”
Pamela Dodds, Respiration Masks / Mascarillas respiradores, 2018. graphite & watercolour drawing on paper, 19 x 27 in, Courtesy of the artist
Steve Rockwell’s exhibits pieces of his “Color Match Game.” Created in 1987, the game was first played competitively in 1999, when it was introduced to resident artists at Omi International Arts Center in Upstate New York. Over the years, tournaments have been held in New York City, Miami Beach, Los Angeles, and Toronto.
Steve Rockwell, Color Match Game #6, 2019, acrylic on board, image size 7.5 x 7.5 in (left), frame 9.75 x 9.75, 2 in (right) with view of box inside. Courtesy of the artist
Although the playing of Color Match is inherently no more complicated than a colorized tic-tac-toe, the resulting variables of each played game, are infinitely more complex. Each game board records a specific moment in time and place between two players. They constitute, in effect, “a conversation in color.”
Leah Oates in front of her works. Photo: Pierre St-Jacques
The Transitory Space series by Leah Oates deals with urban and natural locations that are transforming due to the passage of time, altered natural conditions and a continual human imprint. In everyone and in everything there are daily changes and this series articulates fluctuation in the photographic image and captures movement through time and space.
Leah Oates, Transitory Space, Nova Scotia # 135, Color Photography, 2015-2016. Courtesy of the artist
Transitory spaces have a messy human energy that is perpetually in the present yet continually altering. They are endlessly interesting, alive places where there is a great deal of beauty and fragility.
Pierre St-Jacques, A Gathering Of Shifts, still from the video installation, 2011-2012, Courtesy of the artist
Pierre St-Jacques wrote: “A few years ago, I would have said that my work was about structure, or more specifically about how one constructed one’s world. Over time this has changed to a simpler and more basic premise for my work. I want to explore these little daily moments that we all experience, these glances or gestures, in which there is a connection made with another. In these moments a small door opens up into a large new world that, if only for a second, makes us glimpse as what it means to be human.”
Installation view with Leah Oates, Nova Scotia # 135 (left) and the video of Pierre St-Jacques (right). Photo: Leah Oates
*Exhibition information: Group Show #1, February 2 – 9, 2020, Peter MacKendrick Community Gallery, Wychwood Barns, 76 Wychwood Avenue, Toronto. Gallery hours: Mon – Sat 12 – 6 pm.