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