MAX LUPO: THE BELLY IS THE RULE


LUPO_Belly is The Rule

 

MAX LUPO: THE BELLY IS THE RULE

Interactive Performance and Installation
Opening: Saturday, October 24 from 3-5

Exhibition Dates: October 24-November 8

THE BELLY IS THE RULE is an interactive performance and installation by Max Lupo, in which he attempts to solve a number of essential human dilemmas, with these things that he made for you.

Max has created a range of devices, inventions, and benign machinations, all of which are activated by the viewer’s participation. Together the viewer and artist will find that what the objects purport to do is both a very real reality, and an obvious sham.

Artist Statement
In my most recent work I become both inventor, and manipulator. The devices I create present themselves as an object waiting to be touched, and it is through the user’s interaction that the true character of each device is revealed. The power of the objects reside in their ability to engage with the viewers on both a tactile and conceptual level.

The objects may attempt to offer a concrete solution for some deleterious human ailment, or perhaps they are simply a lightning rod for irony. In either case, the objects are created to be reactive to the user, in a way that allows them to reveal truths about themselves, the user, and I –all at once.

BIO
Max Lupo is an emerging artist who is currently attending the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Arts Media and Design program at OCAD University. Over the course of his undergraduate education Max focused on printmaking, and new media sculpture. These days, Max works to develop a range of interesting inventions which are used in his performative installations.

Max has actively sought out many exhibition opportunities, including solo exhibitions in Georgian College’s Campus Gallery, as well as VERSO Gallery, on Toronto’s Queen Street West. Additionally, he remains engaged in his local art community by founding Art in House, a community art gallery in Barrie, Ontario.

Photograph by Max Lupo, Ferris Wheel, 2014

LINDY FYFE: SHIFT TWIST

FYFE_TECTONIC 10

LINDY FYFE: SHIFT TWIST
FABRIC CONSTRUCTIONS

September 12-October 4
OPENING: Saturday, September 12 from 3-6

 

Image: Lindy Fyfe, Tectonic 10, 2014.
Recycled fabric with canvas, 36″w x 48”h

BLACKBONES by Julie Jenkinson

Blackbones Soon_FNL_2

Julie Jenkinson is a British born artist and designer living in Toronto. Best known for her Animaze Collection of luxury wallpaper, pajamas and fabrics. BLACKBONES, her new collection of primitive modern sculptural jewellery and objects will be launched at VERSO Gallery in the fall, 2015. www.blackbones.ca

Janet Macpherson: Mirabilia

Perch3_LR

Janet Macpherson: Mirabilia
A new collection of ceramic objects.

May 30-June 21, 2015
Opening May 30 from 2-4 PM.

This new collection of ceramic objects invites an encounter with the marvelous,
the monstrous, and the hybrid. It alludes to links between wonder, pleasure and the human appetite for the rare and the strange. Hybrid beings force us to the limits of our understanding, as they present us with two things happening simultaneously. They are constantly in flux, uniting and diverging at the same time.
– Janet Macpherson

Janet Macpherson earned her Bachelor degree in philosophy from York University,
and studied ceramics at Sheridan College. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University. She has been the recipient of a research grant from The Canada Council for the Arts, the 2013 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics, and the RBC Emerging Artists Studio Set-up Award presented by Craft Ontario. Macpherson has shown her work nationally and internationally. This is her first solo show in Canada. Janet currently
lives and works in Toronto.

Image: Perch, 2014. Porcelain. h. 13cm x l. 16cm x d. 9cm
Photo, Ryan Legassicke

Kurt Swinghammer: Red Canoe Series Spring 2015

RED CANOE _22

Kurt Swinghammer: Red Canoe Series Spring 2015
NEW ARRIVALS in the windows of INabstracto.

Image: Red Canoe Series No. 22

Nathan Eugene Carson tagging at AGO

Boy In Progress_Nathan Carson
Visit the Italia Galleria tomorrow night at the AGO’s First Thursdays Event “Close Encounters, where artist, Nathan Eugene Carson and 5 other artists will be tagging 300 bright orange notebooks to be given away on a first come, first served basis.

Nathan’s solo painting exhibition will be held at VERSO Gallery, October 2015.

image: a boy in progress, Nathan Eugene Carson, 2014

Nathan Carson Live Drawing at Basquiat Opening

Nd7VqjgF_400x400
We’re so pleased for Nathan! He’s been chosen to live draw at the
opening for BASQUIAT at the AGO tomorrow night 7:30-10:30.

Irresistible Bowness: ART REVIEW

Bowness_Arnaud-LR

IRRESISTIBLE BOWNESS
Artist makes whimsical marvels from organic materials

NOW TORONTO BY   DECEMBER 17, 2014

MICHAEL BOWNESS at Verso Gallery (1160 Queen West), to December 24. 416-533-6362. Rating: NNNN


The white Pierrot face of artist Arnaud Maggs, painted delicately on tiny pieces of paper affixed to open walnut shells, is just one of the understated marvels in Michael Bowness’s tidy, compact show, Nutty.

This portrait (or, rather, portraits) of Maggs, a long-time associate and friend, bears witness to a lifelong practice of making subtle assemblages and sculptural objects that wear their whimsy gracefully.

Bowness subjects organic objects from around Toronto to contextual sleight of hand.

He positions water-worn bricks fished out of lake Ontario with bits of wire, morphing them into odd little proto-animals. Fallen from a 19th-century foundry long since demolished, the bricks also speak to the creative repurposing that drives the ecology of the city.

The walnut shell series makes up half the show, the objects in wall-mounted glass cases bringing Joseph Cornell’s dream boxes to mind. In 12th Of Never, crisp hand-twisted paper numbers nestle in individual shells. It’s both cryptic and formally precise, taking us back to a point where number intersects with figuration.

In Beaver Lodge, inverted shells stand in for the fat bodies of beavers swimming on a printed blue lake. It’s a scene that borrows heavily from the artsy-crafty chic of the DIY 70s, serving as an aesthetic time capsule. It’s also strangely pleasing and unmistakably Canadian.

The show’s modest scale means these tiny, carefully constructed objects are easy to miss. On further scrutiny, however, they’re impossible to overlook.

Image: Michael Bowness. Arnaud. Walnuts, dental plaster, ink. 2014

Michael Bowness: Show Extended

beaverlodge-2 copy
Michael Bowness, NUTTY:
Show extended until December 24.
Beaver Lodge, 2014
Walnut shells, birch bark, pastel.
31×31 inches framed.

VERSO Gallery & INabstracto Present: Michael Bowness

12thofnever-for wordpress

Nutty — 
New constructs by Michael Bowness
November 20 – Show Extended until December 24
Opening: Thursday, November 20 from 6-8 p.m.

Nutty
 is a show of constructs by Michael Bowness. Using one of the earliest foods consumed by primitive man, Michael uses walnut shells as his “canvas” alongside a collection of found stone sculptures.

Artist Biography
Michael Bowness was born in 1937 off the coast on England in the Irish Sea on a small island called Walney. He was fifteen years old when his family emigrated to Ottawa as his father was made Assistant Director of Submarines for Canada.

Michael graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1967 winning the Bronze Medal for Proficiency in his year. His career as an Art Director, Illustrator, and Sculptor spans over 35 years and he has been honored with many awards, including a Juno for Best Album Cover and a contributor to the book “Caribou and the Barren Land” which won a Governor General’s Award.

Michael lives in Toronto. He enjoys riding a bicycle, walking, and, eating walnuts.

Image: 12th of Never