Gallery 96

 

 

Artist Statement

As a toddler I traveled with my father to the construction site. He was my babysitter while my mother tended to three of my siblings at home. I grew up accustomed to being in front end loaders, digging foundations and pouring cement. Often we would find interesting treasures in the ground, everything from fool’s gold to old keys and coins. The arrowhead that is the focus of this piece was found on the land where our family home was built in the country outside of Woodstock, Ontario. I have had it since I was seven years old and often wondered what to do with it. The old album was part of a collection of photos on my father’s side of the family. I thought it was the perfect book to use for this work.

I began drawing at an early age. My subject matter has ranged from portraits of people that are important to me to, most recently, landscapes that reflect my interest in the local countryside. The landscapes are often of open spaces that imbue a sense of solitude. These images allow me an escape from a busy and often chaotic career.

I work with a variety of media such as watercolour, acrylic, casein and graphite. Frequently I am drawn to the quality of light and textures that are present in the image. Presently I am continuing with acrylic and casein landscape painting. I am also beginning to experiment with tile and mosaic design.

 

Biography

I am a portrait artist who has become a landscape painter over the last few years. I work in casein, acrylics, watercolour and graphite. I draw and paint what inspires me. Usually I am attracted to a subject because of the quality of light and texture. My work does reflect an interest in the countryside.

This year I joined a co-operative art gallery (Gallery 96) in Stratford. The connection with other artists has had a profound affect on me. Only recently have I begun to take my work seriously. Currently I am working on a series of acrylic paintings of my garden.

My career as a visual arts teacher and being a single parent have kept me quite occupied in the past. As I approach a phase in my life where I have more time to focus on my artwork I find myself quite excited about the upcoming works I have planned. It is my goal to get work into galleries outside of Stratford. Recently I have shown work in Gallery Stratford, The Blythe Gallery and at a variety of Gallery 96 events and shows.

 

Artist Statement

When I was a teenager, growing up in The Netherlands, I used to write little poems. A recurring theme for these poems were the depressive moods I struggled with in my teenage years. I never showed these poems to anyone, always kept them to myself. When I recently re-read these old poems, I decided to create something positive and beautiful with them instead of hiding them away.

Inspired by the poems I made etchings, each image illustrating and explaining the poem it accompanies. The poems are hand-typed (to refer to the fact that they were written more than 15 years ago) on transparent paper normally used for tracing patterns when sewing clothes. With this, the analogy with clothes becomes apparent, while the transparent paper also refers to the ‘veil’ that has covered my poems for so long and that is now lifted. Leafing through the book, the reader unveils each poem by turning the page, making visible the poem and the accompanying image. The images serve as ‘clothes’ for my ‘naked’ thoughts on paper. I first had to make these ‘clothes for my poems’, before I could share my hidden poems with the outside world, for everyone to read.

 

 

Artist Statement

No bright colours, no anthropomorphism, no Disney, no animation, but back to basics: simple, two dimensional, black and white images for children to use their imagination on and make their own stories with.

 

Biography

Rozemarijn Oudejans is a Dutch graphic artist and photographer, living and working in Ottawa, Canada since 2005. She was educated at the University of Utrecht and the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design in The Netherlands, and in Canada at the School of the Photographic Arts Ottawa and the Ottawa School of Art. In 2007 she received the Justine Bromiley Memorial Scholarship at the Ottawa School of Art for her photography and printmaking work. Rozemarijn is an active member of the Ottawa School of Art and Arts Ottawa East. Her works have been exhibited in Canada and The Netherlands and can be found in private collections internationally.  To view more of Oudejans's work, go to www.rozemarijnoudejans.com.

 

 

Artist’s Statement

The book Take a Pill is an attempt to address misogyny.  Never have I heard the term ‘take a pill’ other than when it was directed toward a woman by a man.  It is often delivered in a condescending and dismissive tone of voice, but I have had it said to me in a tone dripping with hate.  To me, the phrase implies that regardless of what the person to whom it is directed has been saying, her views are not only unimportant, but likely the result of a baseless and overly-emotional or neurotic view of the situation at hand.  It thoroughly removes any responsibility from the person who has tossed the phrase out.   In Take a Pill, by way of a series of self-portraits, I do take the pill, and then disappear, just as the misogynist would have me do.

 

Biography

Barbara Rehus is an Oakville-based visual artist, working primarily as a sculptor and painter.  She holds two undergraduate degrees from Cleveland State University, as well as accreditation from Toronto School of Art.  Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in public institutions, artist-run centres and commercial galleries throughout Canada, the UK, The Netherlands, Australia, and the United States.  Her work is included in numerous private collections.

 

Artist Statement

The Dynamics of Consumer Behavior, Two Volume Set, consists of two marketing textbooks that have been altered for your viewing pleasure. Please find enclosed interpretations, interventions, extrapolations and realizations by two of the so-called ‘objects’ for which these texts are intended. In the tradition of graffiti and decollage we protest the faceless imposition of product placement and valueless lifestyles.

One image seen throughout is that of the white picket fence. We know this as a traditional symbol of the establishment: husband and wife, 2.5 children, a dog and a nice suburban home. It represents the mythical world of Middle America; it is the carrot on the stick. The white picket fence, still today, evokes a world of exclusion in that its existence necessitates that some people win and some people lose. In the name of protecting this way of life the environment is ravaged, wars are waged, classes subverted and immigrants denied. It is a way of life unknown to most of the world’s population.

Marketing, as a science, attempts to sell this way of life on the assumption that diversity can be analyzed, dissected, classified and exploited to sell a product. The time lag between an original idea and its co-option by the corporate agenda is growing shorter and shorter. In many cases it is impossible to tell whether an idea is real or manufactured by an ad agency. The machine churns out a barrage of material in a marketing juggernaut designed to convince us that we need more.

The themes contained in this bookwork are serious and the intervention is a strategic one. It is also hoped that the pleasure of execution will be apparent and contagious. The work is dedicated to those who are “all lost in the supermarket”.

 

Adrienne Reynolds Biography

 

Born in Minnesota in 1966, Adrienne has shown in Chile, Mexico, Serbia, Brazil, Toronto and New York City. She served on the Board of Directors for A Space gallery in Toronto for two terms, and has worked in the arts as a teacher and community organizer. She has a Masters in Fine Arts from Parsons, the New School for Design (2008) and is an Associate of the Ontario College of Art & Design (1991). She currently teaches at Parsons, the New School for Design in New York City. Grants/scholarships include Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, the Parsons Deans Graduate Scholarship and the LCU Foundation grant.

 

Ron Edding Biography

 

Ron Edding was born in Montreal, Québec where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University. His early practice included painting and experimental film making, leading to screenings and exhibitions at Toronto’s Funnel Experimental Film Centre and at Canada House in London. His more recent work in site-specific, photo-based installation and intervention has developed into an ongoing collaborative performance practice. Recent work includes “Made in Canada”; “The Canzine Art-A-Fair Event”; and “Contracted Locations”, three interactive public performance works presented in Toronto and Mexico. During the past six years Ron has presented performances in Chile, Serbia, Mexico and Canada. Ron also illustrated a book of poetry, The Bride of Inglish, by Zaffi Gousopoulos (Broken Jaw Press, 1998), and Six Levels Below by Terri Favro, a Zine that was included in a Zine exhibition at the Art Gallery of Calgary. Among other things, he is currently collaborating on a graphic novel.

 

 

Artist’s Statement

This single-flag book with canvas pages is an interpretation of the terrain we view from the air when flying over urban, agricultural, and wilderness landscapes – as well as seascapes – on a trip overseas.  There and Back tracks one such route, transporting us to our destination and then, by turning the book upside down and back to front, home again.  Although originally inspired by satellite images of the earth, the fringed pages of the book began to take on autonomous color and design, almost like the flying carpets of legendary times freeing themselves from the earth.

 

 

Artist’s Statement

This accordion book pays tribute the role of canvas - lightweight, strong and durable - in maritime life, to the men who worked the sails over centuries of sea travel, and to one particular canvas-powered vessel: the ketch Nonsuch. This ship was the first to sail from Europe into Hudson’s Bay (1668-69), a voyage which marked the beginnings of the North American fur trade. The drawings which form the basic imagery in this book were made directly on canvas, on-site at the Manitoba Museum where a replica of the Nonsuch is housed.

 

Biography

Ann Stinner is a Winnipeg book artist. Her interest in bookmaking comes from a background in both English and Fine Arts and began when she started keeping visual/verbal journals as a student at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto.

Since then, she has kept hand-bound journals for many purposes, including the documentation of travel experiences, and has explored various book structures and materials, focusing most recently on books made of canvas. Unlike most paintings on canvas which we see in galleries or museums, these canvas books are actually meant to be handled.  Canvas has many attractive properties – flexibility, durability and textural appeal – and a variety of historical and potential uses which may be referenced in her work. Many of her pieces are inspired by travel and by certain places for which she feels a strong affinity. Ann’s bookworks usually involve a mixture of approaches because she enjoys the challenge of finding the ideal combination of structure, materials and media which will enhance the meaning of the work.

In the past few years Ann’s work has been shown at exhibitions in Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Victoria and Seongnam (South Korea).

Artist Statement

My education at the University of British Columbia was for the most part formal and traditional. After obtaining my Bachelor’s in Studio Arts in 1998, I realized that I had spent a great deal of time working on large-scaled, static images, namely in the areas of printmaking. This prompted me to be more curious with unconventional mediums and I began to focus on storytelling and visual narration.

Because most of my subject matters are of personal/autobiographical nature, I have often emphasized the form and function of various mediums. It has always been important that my audience be able to interact with the artwork, as I am constantly trying to achieve a sense of intimacy between the art piece and the viewer. My attempts at stimulating intimacy and interactivity took shape in many art forms: sculptural installation, photography, drawings and prints.

However, I recently discovered the book as a dynamic and versatile art form, which allows me to encompass many of my previously practiced art techniques: printmaking, photography, and sculpture into a single piece. The book is an intimate format that enables the viewer to interact and feel privy to intimate contents of the book. For example, in order to view the book piece, an individual must open, turn pages, and sometimes disassemble the book.

In my piece, mini dawson, I have embedded a miniature photographic, accordion book in the centre of the snow globe frame. Snow globes are often sold as kitschy tourist souvenirs, but by inserting a photographic book in the centre, the snow globe evolves into a more complex sculptural piece. The photographs were taken during my artist residency at Dawson City, Yukon.

 

Biography

Marlene Yuen received her Bachelor’s in Studio Art in 1998 from the University of British Columbia. Marlene has exhibited at galleries, artist-run centres, and cultural events in Canada, the United States and Japan. Although she is a multidisciplinary artist, her current focus is on handmade books. She is an active member of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artist Guild and the Alcuin Society. Earlier this year, Marlene completed an artist residency at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.