A Virtuous Wealth: The Impulse to Collect

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A Virtuous Wealth on now at Factory 163.

7 days/week Noon – 6 p.m.

Surely everyone has experienced the impulse to collect. From the little wooden box we filled with treasures as a child, to the house tastefully arranged with antique furniture, to the neighbour who just couldn't seem to throw anything away; the impulse to collect is both far reaching and deeply ingrained within the human psyche. In its basest form, collecting represents the fundamental urge to gather and store goods against the changing of the seasons or the threat of poverty. But while it originates in such practical and essential ways, it is also expresses an almost erotic attachment to the world in its desire to redeem the vast and various forms of want we encounter. It does so by attempting to transform want into an experience of plenitude. We may feel loss within the passage of time and collect as a way of taking delight in restoration and preservation. We may feel uneasy within the chaos of our present and find satisfaction in the experience of order. We may feel anxious about the erosion of our values and express our convictions by promoting a clearer vision of the future. As such, collecting can be seen as a sounding board for our virtue. Rooted within both the physical trials and the physical pleasures of our embodiment, the impulse to collect presents a wide range of important questions. What do we value? How do we value it? In what ways does it bind us to our community and reflect critically upon our culture?

A Virtuous Wealth is a Gallery 96 exhibition surveying a variety of personal insights and critical responses to the phenomenon of collecting.

Opening: May 8th at 7 pm - Factory 163, 163 King St., Stratford

Runs from: Sunday, May 9 to Sunday, May 23 and is opened from noon to 6 pm.

Participating Artists :

Glenn Elliott, Elisabeth Feryn, Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick, Nancy Groenestege, Carolyn Horley, Gloria Kagawa, Anna Koot, Darlean Morris, Wendy O'Brien, Valerie O'Flynn, Wendy Orr, Kathi Posliff, Michelle Salter, Erik Sansom, Ev Scott, Victoria Shannon, Bonnie Steinman.

Curated by Phil Vanderwall

Spotlight on Gallery 96

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Gallery 96 is pleased to partner with the Ontario Arts Council through spotlight: the arts where you live plus Factory 163 to give the public an opportunity to experience local visual arts. Factory 163 is the new home of Gallery 96 and is located at 163 King Street in Stratford.

Gallery 96 Members’ Showcase

Gallery 96 Members’ Showcase features the diverse talents of the artist members of Gallery 96. Media explored include oil and acrylic paintings, sculpture, photography, fibre art, printmaking, and digital art. The opening reception will take place on Friday, June 5 from 7 pm – 10 pm at Factory 163 at 163 King St in Stratford. The exhibition will be opened for spotlight: the arts where you live Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7 from 10 am to 5 pm. The show continues until Sunday, June 14 and is open from noon to 5 pm daily. Everyone is welcomed to view the exhibition.

Artists participating in this show include: Glenn Elliott, Nancy Groenestege, Gloria Kagawa, Anna Koot, James MacDougall, Irene Miller, Darlean Morris, Wendy O’Brien, Valerie O'Flynn, Wendy Orr, Kathi Posliff, Michelle Salter, Erik Sansom, and Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick.

Environmental Poem

Let poetry lead you through the architecture of this converted factory. Artist and poet Lesley Walker Fitzpatrick will take you step-by-step up the staircase of Factory 163 with her environmental poem.

Fri: 7 pm–10 pm Sat & Sun: 9 am–5 pm

Gallery 96 would like take this opportunity to thank Wendy O’Brien for organizing Gallery 96’s participation in spotlight: the arts where you live in Stratford. .

Manipulate This

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Gallery 96 presents at Factory 163

Manipulate This…

Opening reception: Saturday, September 6, 2008 at 8 pm. Electronic music by Nick Storring
Runs: Saturday, September 6 to Sunday, September 14 from 12 to 5 pm
Workshop: Manipulate That on Saturday, September 13 at 8 pm

Stratford, Ontario – Manipulate This is an exhibition featuring the work of ten Stratford area artists, which expresses their vision of hybrid art. It explores the digital arts from the perspective of traditionally artistic backgrounds such as that of painting, sculpture, photography, drawing and printmaking. The opening reception is on Saturday, September 6 at 8 pm. The show is at Factory 163 at 163 King St in Stratford in the southeast corner of the building. Nick Storring provides music for the evening in a meld of the classical and electronic. The exhibition runs from Saturday, September 6 to Sunday, September 14 and is open daily from noon to 5 pm. The artists will be present at the reception.

The second weekend (Saturday, September 13 at 8 pm) will bring a related event – Manipulate That – an opportunity for the public to manipulate materials to create new artworks, both visual and/or musical, just as the artists have done.

Through several workshops on computer graphics and animation sponsored by Gallery 96 and the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the artists have combined their traditional art forms with new media to create exciting new art works. Each artwork is as individual as the artist.

Glenn Elliott combines clay sculpture with animation to produce a playful work called living water.

Photographer Elisabeth Feryn layers images from nature to create a rich tapestry of line and form.

Graphic artist and painter Nancy Groenestege creates fanciful and colourful abstracts from unlikely source materials.

Gloria Kagawa takes one of her early prints and transforms it into a completely unexpected work.

Wendy O'Brien manipulates an image of her fibre art, prints this and then embellishes the print, to bring the piece full circle: an art quilt to a digital canvas to a new fibre work.

Valerie O'Flynn layers images from past paintings to create a complex and thought provoking image that speaks to today’s issues in society.

Michelle Salter explores the intricacies of a sculptural piece, expanding and playing with line, colour and composition, to create new 2-dimentional artworks.

Published illustrator and cartoonist Erik Sansom photographs the gallery space at Factory 163, enhancing the complexity of line in his image to produce a unique vision.

Painter and sculptor Bonnie Steinman’s latest exploration of clay sculpture has morphed into a series of beautiful and mysterious 2-dimensional images.

Lesley Walker-FitzPatrick creates a strong message within a collage of photographs, demonstrating the potential of manipulation in conveying content.

Music for the opening is generated by Nick Storring, a traditionally trained cellist who uses manipulation to compose “his own feral version of beatboxing, gibberish rapping, and crude vocoder histrionics”. He is involved in a diverse cross-section of bands and projects including the experimental jazz sounds of I Have Eaten The City, the haunting music of Picastro, the wayward cello duo The Knot and the backing ensemble for soulful singer *Saidah Baba Talibah. He has also appeared live and on recordings with many artists and orchestras and is a recent winner of the 2008 Jeux de Temps/ Times Play competition.

Arts writer Christine Walde comments on artists influenced by the new media arts: “Artists have always employed the technologies of their time, and as the knowledge and usage of computers and digital technology increases, it is only natural that artists should incorporate this technology into their work, pushing the boundaries of their artistic practice. As a result, a new generation of artists are emerging, exploring technology at the root of its power. As the future pulls us forward, many artists feel they are compelled to follow in modernism’s footprints, propelled by the technology that carries them. In many ways, digital technology and new media is the new clay. But what’s most interesting, however, is when the technology falls away to reveal the art itself and the viewer is empowered.”

Rural Roots

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Gallery 96 members have been invited to show at the Blyth Festival Art Gallery in an exhibition called Rural Roots starting August 7th and running until September 19th. The exhibition will feature work that looks at art and agriculture expressed in a variety of media.

On September 26th, an expanded version of Rural Roots will be remounted in a Stratford area barn on the O'Brien farm located at #4264 Line 36 (also known as Quinlan Road). This exhibition will feature artwork both indoors and out. Please join us for the opening reception Sept 26 at 4pm. Sausages and cider fresh from the country.

Hours after Sept 26: Wed - Sun from Noon to 5pm until October 11.

Topics explored will be: how the artist views environmental issues facing the agricultural community, the fate of the small town Ontario, agriculture practices old and new, and the beauty found in our rural landscapes.

Artists include: Glenn Elliott, Elisabeth Feryn, Nancy Groenestege, Carolyn Horley, Lucinda Jones, Gloria Kagawa, David Leaney, Jim MacDougall, Brenda McDonnell, Wendy O’Brien, Valerie O’Flynn, Wendy Orr, Kathi Posliff, Michelle Salter, Erik Sansom, Bonnie Steinman and Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick.

Please join us in this beautiful rural setting to celebrate our community.

Industrial Strength

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Saturday, March 21, 2009, at 7 pm Gallery 96 unveils its latest show Industrial Strength at Factory 163 here in Stratford, Ontario. The show uses the factory itself as its inspiration.

Artists are: Glenn Elliott, Nancy Groenestege, Lucinda Jones, Gloria Kagawa, David Leaney, Brenda MC Donnell, Wendy O’Brien, Valerie O’Flynn, Wendy Orr, Kathi Posliff, Michelle Salter, Erik Sansom, Evelyn Scott, Bonnie Steinman and Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick.

This will be the third show that Gallery 96 has presented at its new location at 163 King St., Stratford.

The show will run from March 21 to April 5. The gallery will be open from noon til 5 pm on those days. The opening reception starts at 7 pm on Saturday, March 21. Everyone is welcome. We hope to see you there!