New Works of David Urban from the Koerner's Residency Program at Queen's University

David Urban David Urban is widely regarded as one of the leading Canadian painters of his generation. Urban completed both of his undergraduate degrees at York University in 1989, graduating with a BA in English Literature and a Visual Arts BFA specializing in Painting and Drawing. He received his graduate degree, an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing in 1994 from the University of Guelph. His work is in many private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada and he is currently represented by Corkin Gallery.

He has recently been honored with the Koerner Artist-in-Residence at Queen’s University, March 2012.This distinguished residency, given to pioneering Canadian artists, establishes Urban as an educator and mentor of the Queen’s students and artistic community. In addition, Urban will be creating new works at Queen’s Ontario Hall studios

David Urban
High Windows, 2012
oil on canvas
40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm)

David Urban
Recognition, 2012
oil on canvas
18 x 24 in. (45.72 x 60.96 cm)

David Urban
The Riven Branch, Dyptych, 2012
oil on canvas
144 x 60 in. ( 365.76 x 152.4 cm)

David Urban
The Water Image, tryptych, 2012
oil on canvas
216 x 60 in. ( 548.64 x 152.4 cm )

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ontario Hall, Queen's University

Ontario Hall, Queen's University

Ontario Hall, Queen's University

Corkin Gallery

 

Corkin Gallery presents FRANÇOISE SULLIVAN - AEDH, 2012

FRANÇOISE SULLIVAN AEDH, 2012 Exhibition Opening at Corkin Gallery Saturday, April 28, 2012, 12 - 4pm

Corkin Gallery cordially invites you to the opening of an exhibition, showcasing new oil on canvas works by Françoise Sullivan. March 24 - April 24, 2012 Françoise- her value as a multi-faceted artist reached the level of priceless many years ago and she continue to create remarkable works of art. Françoise Sullivan's achievement in the arts has been distinguished by the highest of Canadian honours. In 2001 Sullivan was named a Member of the Order of Canada and in 2005 she was awarded the prestigious Governor General's Award in the Visual and Media Arts. The Art Gallery of Ontario bestowed Sullivan with the 2010 Gershon Iskowitz Prize. In the new series of paintings titled Aedh - a fire, which does not consume itself- fresh associations between colours and forms have come forward. Harkening from her past monochromes paintings,  Françoisehas discovered new shapes, which have now appeared and come to life. The new works spring from the colour red, then boil over or extend into near yellows, browns, and purples, thoroughly exploring the possibilities presented by colour, light, flatness. Françoise has a strong belief in abstract painting and the modernist values attached to it, such as beauty, self-expression. Painting is still important in contemporary art and its value is dependent on its quality as with all art works. This standard of value is flexible and can encompass many cultural discourses. Thus visual thinking is healthy and alive. Aedh is a consistent development of past works that brings something lively and new. The major force of the new paintings is the variety, richness of the reds. We often associate the colour red with harshness and aggression but in Gaelic, red becomes joyous and tender. To view works in this exhibition, please click on the following link:    Join us on Facebook for daily updates:

Françoise Sullivan - her value as a multi-faceted artist reached  the level of priceless many years ago and she continues to create  remarkable works of art. Her achievement in the arts has been  distinguished by the highest of Canadian honours. In 2001  Sullivan was named a Member of the Order of Canada  and in 2005 she was awarded the prestigious Governor  General's Award in the Visual and Media Arts. The Art Gallery  of Ontario bestowed Sullivan with the 2010 Gershon Iskowitz Prize. In the new series of paintings titled Aedh - a fire, which  does not consume itself - fresh associations between  colours and forms have come forward. Harkening  from her past monochrome paintings, Sullivan  has discovered new shapes, which have now appeared and come  to life. The new works spring from the colour red, then boil  over or extend into near yellows, browns, and purples,  thoroughly exploring the possibilities presented by colour, light and flatness. Françoise Sullivan has a strong belief in abstract painting  and the modernist values attached to it, such as beauty and  self-expression. Painting is still important in contemporary art  and its value is dependent on its quality as with all art works. T his standard of value is flexible and can encompass many  cultural discourses. Thus visual thinking is healthy and alive. Aedh is a consistent development of past works that brings  something lively and new. The major force of the new paintings is the variety  and richness of the reds. We often associate the colour red  with harshness and aggression but in Aedh, red becomes voluptuous and tender.    To view additional works in this exhibition, please click on the following link: http://corkingallery.com/?q=node/247            Join us on Facebook for daily updates:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/corkingallery         Françoise Sullivan No.6, Aedh,  2012 oil on canvas, 36 x 204 in. Françoise Sullivan No.14, Aedh, 2012 oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in.  Distillery District, 7 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Canada M5A 3C4 Tel 416.979.1980 director@corkingallery.com www.corkingallery.com

IAIN BAXTER& at the AGO:

AGO Celebrates IAIN BAXTER& with Interactive Features and Special Events

(TORONTO – Feb. 16, 2012) For 50 years, Canadian artist IAIN BAXTER& has been radically redefining the role of the artist, integrating photography, installation, sculpture, painting, drawing and performative aspects into his work. An upcoming exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958–2011, invites visitors to become collaborators, by engaging with the artist and his work. Special events that highlight the interactive nature of the artist’s brand will complement and activate the exhibition, which is on view from March 3 to Aug. 12, 2012.

Co-curated by David Moos, former curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the AGO and Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958–2011 brings the evolution of BAXTER&’s career to life for visitors. The exhibition travels directly to Toronto from Chicago, where it was recently on view at the MCA and was named a critic’s pick by Artforum International.

“BAXTER&’s thinking resonates today because his willingness to experiment remains undiminished,” Moos said. “It is here, between originality and the familiar, that one finds BAXTER&, raising our awareness that art is an experiment—an embrace one must experience.”

A believer in collaboration, the recurring symbol in BAXTER&’s work is the ampersand, and he often refers to himself as “the &man.” The artist, whose surname is pronounced “Baxter-and” has worked under various monikers throughout his career, most famously N.E. Thing Co., a corporate-style organization he served as co-president of with his then-wife Ingrid Baxter. In 2005 BAXTER& legally added an “&” to his name, reflecting his collaborative approach to art and his fundamental belief that art requires a strong connection with the viewer. “Life,” says BAXTER&, “seems to be about ands. After we leave this life and this planet, only an & remains.”

Recognizing that communication goes both ways, the exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to interact and engage with BAXTER& and his work. Eighteen custom-designed QR codes populate the exhibition, letting smartphone users watch, share and comment on videos, audio and behind-the-scenes content in the Wi-Fi enabled Gallery. At the heart of the exhibition lies an ampersand-shaped interaction station where, through Twitter, visitors can share their answers to thought-provoking questions from the artist, including topics of environmentalism which figure heavily in his work.

Featuring some 100 photographic, sculptural and vacuum-formed works, including Inflated Blue Sky and Zero Emissions, the exhibition takes visitors on an often witty tour through some of the most important themes of contemporary art: the connection between art, business and everyday life; environmental issues; and the rise of photography as a vibrant and relevant art form.

Events and highlights for IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958–2011 include:

AGO MEMBERS’ PREVIEW
Wednesday, Feb. 29, 10 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
AGO members enjoy free admission to IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958–2011 and are invited to attend a special members-only preview of the exhibition. Visit ago.net for more information.

CATALOGUE AND BOOK LAUNCH
Wednesday, Feb. 29, 6 p.m.
shopAGO
Featuring more than 200 reproductions, the exhibition catalogue IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958-2011 includes essays by David Moos, Michael Darling, Dennis W. Durham, Christophe Domino, and Lucy R. Lippard, as well as original interviews with IAIN BAXTER& and Ingrid Baxter by Alexander Alberro. Edited by David Moos and co-published by Goose Lane Editions, the soft-cover, 224 page volume is available for $45 at shopAGO. To celebrate this publication, BAXTER& will be on hand to sign copies of the catalogue at the public book launch.

MEET THE ARTIST: IAIN BAXTER&
How I Became the &Man
Wednesday, April 4, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
Jackman Hall at the AGO
Members $17| Public $20 |Students $12
Follow IAIN BAXTER& on his journey from zoologist to conceptual artist. The &man will share his insights on the ecology of life and art &…. Visit ago.net for more information.

EARTH DAY WEBINAR WITH IAIN BAXTER&
Tuesday, March 27, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
FREE
In this live, online event educators can join in a conversation with BAXTER& on the topic of Earth Day. The artist will discuss his work and its relationship to the environment, the notion of working together in a participatory environment, and his art making process. He will also share his thoughts on Earth Day and how educators and students can get involved, and engage educators with four participatory questions from the exhibition.

Organized by the AGO, IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958–2011 is generously supported by Leslie Gales & Keith Ray, Rosamond Ivey, the Steven & Michael Latner families, Philip B. Lind & Ellen Roland and Carol & Morton Rapp.

The AGO acknowledges the generous support of its Signature Partners:
American Express, Signature Partner of the Conservation Program; and Aeroplan, Signature Partner of the Photography Collection Program.

Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts and generous contributions from AGO members, donors and private-sector partners.

For more information on exhibitions and special programming, please visit www.ago.net.

ABOUT THE AGO
With a permanent collection of more than 80,000 works of art, the Art Gallery of Ontario is among the most distinguished art museums in North America. In 2008, with a stunning new design by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, the AGO opened its doors to the public amid international acclaim. Architectural highlights include Galleria Italia, a gleaming showcase made of wood and glass running the length of an entire city block along the Gallery’s façade; and the feature staircase, spiraling up through the roof of Walker Court and into the new contemporary galleries above. From the extensive Group of Seven collection to the dramatic African art gallery; from the cutting-edge works in the contemporary tower to Peter Paul Rubens’ masterpiece The Massacre of The Innocents, a highlight of the celebrated Thomson Collection, there is truly something for everyone at the AGO.

Corkin Gallery-Sondra Meszaros featured in House & Home Magazine

Serene colours show off this traditional home's stunning framework.

Fashion designer Paul Sinclaire's former Toronto home was an architectural beauty filled with soft hues and classic furniture. Large windows and high ceilings amplify the space, creating the perfect setting for show-stopping works of art.

See Sinclaire's new home in theFebruary 2011 issue of House & Home. Plus, look at other fashion designers' homes in our photo gallery.

• Photographer:

  Virginia Macdonald

• Products: Artwork, Corkin Gallery.

Sharon Switzer-Globe and Mail

R.M. Vaughan

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Mar. 30, 2012 4:30PM EDT

All Sharon Switzer needs

is a comfy Freudian couch

Sharon Switzer at Corkin Gallery

Until April 24, Building 61, 55 Mill St., Toronto; corkingallery.com

Sharon Switzer’s exquisite new video and digital print exhibition, Nearly Present, fills the lower hall of the Corkin Gallery with spectral, transient visions, spacey energy waves, a fleeting, incantatory visual hum, and no small amount of disco-ball glam. That’s a lot of punch from four flat screens and five framed prints.

I don’t pretend to fully understand the highly specialized, laptop mechanics behind Switzer’s creations, so I’ll let her explain them herself:

“I work with software that processes images over time. Within that, I work with an effect that’s called particle effect. All that really means is that the effect shoots out little white dots, or particles, that can look like circles or little streaks, and after that, there are about two hundred different options that I have for deciding how those dots look, how they move over time, how they react, in this made up physical space.”

“This is software that people use in movies and TV shows, to create fake snow or smoke. But I don’t want to do that commercial look.”

“The videos always start with a stream, something that kind of moves in a straight line, or a sphere. Then I move the particles around the stream or the sphere. Then I go back and forth and change everything.”

However complex the process, Switzer’s final results will give even the most digitally illiterate plenty to fall into, or be transported by, or both.

The videos are, naturally, the most immediately eye-catching, because the animations contained in them move with a markedly febrile energy (despite how calculated each pixel might be by the artist).

In constant motion, the near-white on black animations simultaneously expand and self-enfold, over and over, in manic loops that replicate a psychological state close to that created by meditation; wherein one feels wholly attentive to internal cognitive ticks and the never-still external world.

Conversely, and contradictorily, the looping patterns, upon second or third viewing, become reliable, their patterns recognizable, and the ability to predict where and how the animations will change soon creates in the viewer a comforting, placidity-inducing sense of stasis. Thus, the world before the viewer, (or, rather, a world, in miniature) unfolds as confidently, and naturally, as rain falls to earth or leaves bend to the wind.

The digital prints offer a very different set of responses. Although they appear to be based on captured moments from the animations, Switzer informs me that while related, in shape or movement, to the animations, the prints are generated independently, to allow for much higher resolutions and far more printing options than would be available from a culled still.

Furthermore, Switzer layers deeper colours into the prints – warm golds and bright, cool silvers, flannel greys plus the odd, swampy green – and manipulates the hotness, a.k.a. the light intensity, of the white (well, not quite white, as pure white would be rather eye-blistering) particles.

Technical issues aside, the prints allow us to examine in depth images that are too quick, too transcendent, to hold onto when they are part of the dizzying proceedings spiralling on the screens. It’s like looking at a thunderstorm in stop motion, or a drop of blood under a microscope – individual particles pop out, like diamonds spread out on black felt, while undulating waves, halted in mid-crest, form cake-icing curlicues, and lines that breathe for mere half seconds while animated become tapestry threads, cat-gut harp strings, abandoned spiders’ webs.

Part of the fun of this exhibition is playing free-association games (if only the Corkin Gallery would provide a comfy Freudian couch to lay back on); matching and mixing, or mashing, your own readings of the forms with fellow visitors.

An animation I read as replicating the waves and pockets produced by wafting cigarette smoke reminded Switzer of a spinal column X-ray. An image of a pocked sphere imploding and reforming made me think of solar flares, wormholes, and the life span of soap bubbles, but for another visitor it triggered thoughts of corpuscles, bacterial attacks and spores.

Analyze that!

www.corkingallery.com

Please click on a link below to see a sample of the videos!

http://vimeo.com/sharonswitzer/ether-flow-music (http://vimeo.com/39408694)

http://vimeo.com/sharonswitzer/ether-flow-mesh (http://vimeo.com/39407047)

http://vimeo.com/sharonswitzer/xray-flow (http://vimeo.com/39405897)

http://vimeo.com/sharonswitzer/over-flow (http://vimeo.com/39404903)

CORKIN GALLERY

Distillery District, 7 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Canada M5A 3C4

Tel 416.979.1980

director@corkingallery.com

www.corkingallery.com

Corkin Gallery presents an Exhibition by Sharon Switzer

CORKIN GALLERY

SHARON SWITZER

NEARLY PRESENT

Opening: Saturday, March 24, 2012, 2 - 5pm

Corkin Gallery cordially invites you to the opening of an exhibition of new works, featuring video animations and prints by Sharon Switzer.

March 24 - April 24, 2012

Nearly Present imagines the otherworldly beauty of the ethereal. In this new body of work, Sharon Switzer experiments with particle systems; using this commercial software to create unusual and evocative animations. The work also touches on the artist's earlier interests in the relationship between photography and the invisible: ghosts, time, things that photography shouldn't be allowed to capture but does.

In this work, Nearly Present is the disembodied space of the digital and the virtual that exists unseen around us. Forgoing the ironic humour intrinsic to previous bodies of work, Switzer has created mesmerizing ethereal videos that have no need for language. This work hovers just outside of the known world, like ghosts caught in the machine.

To view works in this exhibition, please click on the following link:

http://corkingallery.com/?q=node/248

CORKIN GALLERY

Distillery District, 7 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Canada M5A 3C4

Tel 416.979.1980

director@corkingallery.com

www.corkingallery.com