On the Web - Jeffery Harrison

"Unedit My Heart" blog
monday, november 29, 2010

Driving Art Up the Wall: Jeff Harrison

This past week, I've gone to a few fun shows that have artists working intensively with walls. All three are recommended for a drop by. For his exhibition at Parts Gallery, pictured above, Jeff Harrison takes his characteristically crazy-busy canvas style and extends it onto screenprints on newsprint, which paper the walls. Extra prints were handed out for free at the opening, and Parts tells me they still have a few on hand if you'd like. My favourite work in the show was was a work that spelled out "GRAVY," a word which seemed to sum up, for me, the enjoyable excess that characterizes Harrison's best work.

Leah Sandals is a freelance arts writer for the National Post, Globe and Mail and Canadian Art.

(post abbreviated by PG)

PUNCHY ALL THE TIME - update

We finished installing Jeffrey Harrison's show which opens tomorrow.
The walls are covered with hand-pulled one of a kind screenprints done on newsprint and the canvas paintings are hung over that.
It all makes for a truly ebullient exhibition.

SPOILER: Along with fruit punch, Jeff will be giving away some screen prints at the opener Thursday November 18.
after that they will be available for ten bucks.

JEFFREY HARRISON

PUNCHY ALL THE TIME
November 11 - December 5

Some images of new work by Jeffrey Harrison.
The artist will transform the front gallery for the next three weeks.
I will post more pictures once the show is up.



"M" master

detail - "M" master

chito's pizza

detail-chito's pizza

studio view - dbl geezil

garden view - lean clean and bluesy



installing the work @ Parts Gallery

ART TORONTO 2010

Thanks to all who helped out and supported our inaugural year at Toronto's International art fair Art Toronto 2010.
It was a great success!

Here are some pictures from the 5 day event.




Calm before the storm.

not exactly a storm, but it was heartening to see a huge line up of art supporters everyday an hour before doors opened.

Ric Santon, Jeffrey Harrison, Dianna Witte and Judith Geher

at the opening night gala.

Fiona Ackerman was in town for the show

and she obliged me by standing with her painting for a photo op.

Designer Stephanie Lees in our booth Saturday afternoon.

IN THE NEWS - Judith Geher

Catch an interview with Judith Geher on ARTSYNC TV
discussing her exhibition at Parts GAllery.

IN THE NEWS - Judith Geher

Judith Geher .. wish
Reviewed by Matthew Purvis@ blogTO



Judith Geher at Parts Gallery from October 14 - November 7

At the Parts Gallery in Leslieville, Judith Geher has a new set of paintings on display (also depicted in lead photo). The subtly textured portraits are done with acyclic on linen and oil on wood. Invoking static and strained moments, they play on density and rhythm to create frayed and discomforting images. Although they owe something, in a strictly figurative sense, to the glossy world of fashion and advertising, the sheen of that world is completely eroded, leaving a roughness that's marked out in harsh lines at the base of the image. These are then accented by a build up of bright and inviting colours. Her brush work is often a combination of lashing and imprinting, creating sometimes dangling details and at others jarring blocks of colour that decompose the forms.

Judith Geher

October 14 - November 7

...wish.

JUDITH GEHER's latest body of work explores the quest for a personal identity in a world dominated by mediated images of "an idealized feminine aesthetic". Geher's contemporary figure paintings are charged with a seductive and boldly romantic quality "fraught with longing and desire" while maintaining a modestly winsome manner. This gesture could also be seen in her painterly process. While some areas are built up with mounds of colour and paint other parts are left bare to allow the natural background to show through.

IN THE NEWS - Fiona Ackerman

Arts writer R.M. Vaughan reviews Fiona Ackerman's exhibition at Parts Gallery in the Saturday October 8 2010 full colour edition of the Globe & Mail.

Fiona Ackerman at Parts Gallery
Until Oct. 10, 1150 Queen St. E., Toronto; www.partsgallery.ca

Vancouver-based painter Fiona Ackerman’s new acrylics on canvas, currently on display at Parts Gallery, are an excellent example of what psychologists call “associational logic.”

When you describe the individual parts of a given Ackerman painting, then add said parts together, the math ought not to hold. But her paintings do cohere, and cohere wonderfully, largely because they remain true to their own interior, wholly idiosyncratic, systems of logic. Ackerman is a brave painter – always walking the dental-floss-thin tightrope between expertly composed and total train wreck.

In one painting alone, I found half loops and dendrites, sharp barbershop stripes and splayed, wobbly brush strokes, speckles against scales and flame licks paired with waves – and nothing seemed out of place. Ackerman’s mad colour combinations, cement greys sidling up to neons, tangerines making nice with paper-bag browns, would cause sensible colour theorists to throw up their twiggy arms in high dismay. But Ackerman makes the odd couples dance, mostly by knowing exactly how much ballroom floor space to give them.

It takes a lot of careful planning to make a painting come across as both superficially haphazard and, on further inspection, deeply studied. I suspect Ackerman scrapes off as much paint as she applies. One of her key strategies, I’m guessing, is to compose each painting around a central organic form, or cluster of forms, and then build out from that point.

The result of all this careful planning is, perversely, a set of paintings that carry the loose, shifting and untrustworthy physics of free-association daydreaming. The works also remind me, weirdly enough, of the interiors of aquariums, those microcosmic seascapes made up of luridly coloured, hyper-artificial coral and flora.

Pity the paintings are not waterproof.

IN THE NEWS - Fiona Ackerman

Here is a great interview with Fiona Ackerman on the Art Toronto Blog about her work and upcoming participation at the fair with Parts Gallery.

ART TORONTO 2010 - October 29 to November 1

We will be participating in this years international art fair at the Metro Convention Center.

Please visit us at BOOTH #1114 in the NEXT section of galleries showcasing up and coming artists.

Visit the website for more information.click here

ARTIFICIAL KINGDOM

SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 10

Inspired by a book on the 1st World Fair in 1851 , the curatorial concept for Artificial Kingdom draws on the spirit of the Victorian era, characterised by huge advancements in industry, great inventions and over indulgence.

It was in this period of history when the museum gave way to private collections and adventurers struck out into the untamed world to return home with a bounty of treasures from faraway places. A cabinet of curiosities, or vitrine was a common conversation piece in an affluent household and reflected the attitude and thirst for knowledge of the times.

Fiona Ackerman's multi-layered process blossoms into a lush arrangement of natural wonders from strange and exotic places.

Bradley Wood's masterful paintings offer a glimpse into the world-weary parlours of the cosmopolitan class. The suggested narratives reflect a malaise common of an empire burdened by the weight of their own excess.

In Place

AUGUST 21 - SEPTEMBER 12



SAMANTHA WALROD



GILLIAN WILSON



SOPHIE DEFRANCESCA



KIM ATLIN

GIEFERT - DEPNER

JULY 24-AUGUST 15

WORK & PLAY- two person exhibition


Vancouver artist Jeff Depner brings his architecturally inspired abstracts to Toronto for his first exhibiton at Parts Gallery.









Martie Giefert's panaramic photographs from the 'arena series' have been touring North America in a show launched by the Magenta Foundation book Flash Forward - Emerging Photographers 2009.

in the news- The Calgary Journal on Siobhan Humston

Downtown art gallery welcomes returning artist
Written by Leah Brownridge
Friday, 16 April 2010 13:54
A Canadian artist displays latest exhibition at Herringer Kiss Gallery
Vancouver artist, Siobhan Humston, brings nature and art together in her latest exhibition, Presage, at the Herringer Kiss Gallery.

“Nature has always been my inspiration because I’ve always lived in the city," she said. "Even when I’m travelling, I live in cities. Because of that, I’ve had the strong pull for nature that I just can’t get away from.”
For this exhibit, Humston made and used her own pigments to illustrate important issues in the environmental world such as the disappearing of coral reefs and endangerment of honeybees.

“I used pigments that I’ve made myself from various medium grounds (can be found in the form of chalks, silica and marble dusts) and adding water," Humston said. "It acts differently than acrylic, almost like a dye. The different layers create a little bit of magic, especially since it’s dealing with nature and how water and paint work together, it’s just natural.”

Vancouver visual artist; Siobhan Humston; shows her latest exhibit; Presage at the Herringer Kiss Gallery Saturday April 10.
Photo: Leah Brownridge/ Calgary Journal
Humston’s signature style of circular shapes combined with the curvy lines and bright hues were well received by viewers.

Jeremy and Trina Quickfall, who have been to multiple exhibits at the Herringer Kiss Gallery, said they felt Humston’s work was different than her other pieces they have seen in the past.

“I felt it was a bit whimsical, it showed a kind of a chaos in nature theme," Trina Quickfall said. "It’s a nice change from other artwork we’ve seen, it’s just kind of happy.”

Deborah Herringer Kiss, owner of the gallery, explains why they've kept interest in Humston’s work.

“I was immediately drawn to the organic nature of Siobhan’s work and deep rich colours," Herringer Kiss said. "Her work has always been consistent and well received with our clients and we are happy to continue to show her and promote her.”

Incorporating the natural environment with a soft and feminine feel makes Presage stand out from previous exhibits, added Herringer Kiss.

“It differs from her other show in that she is using different materials," Herringer Kiss. "This time she is using mahogany veneer and raw pigment rather than acrylic, so she really experimented with the medium which gives the work a different feel. She’s also thinking about the environment and fragile, yet beautiful, elements in nature."

Humston is from southern Ontario where she studied music and theatre and later fine arts. She earned her fine art degree at Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork, Ireland and currently resides in Vancouver, B.C.

Presage is Humston’s second exhibit at the Herringer Kiss Gallery and will be on display until May 12. The Herringer Kiss Gallery is located at 709A 11th Ave. S.W. Herringer Kiss Gallery is open Tuesdays-Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information visit the Herringer Kiss Gallery website.

new arrivals

Kim Atlin