Fiona Freemark: In Waves, November 9th - December 2nd, 2018

FIONA FREEMARK
IN WAVES
NOVEMBER 9TH - DECEMBER 2ND
OPENING: FRIDAY NOVEMBER 9TH, 7-9PM

Fiona Freemark’s art is based on day-to-day experiences of life in Toronto, Ottawa Valley, and, most recently, the Doris McCarthy Residency located off the Scarborough Bluffs. Each work of art layers two subject matters that interact, either in opposition or tandem, to create intricate and subtle narratives based on the Canadian landscape. Freemark’s work creates a visual representation of time, sometimes spanning a single hour, day, or week.

There’s no word for the unique medium Freemark works in—it’s a blend of photography, collage, printmaking, and drawing. The process of creation begins with taking a photograph. Freemark is drawn to images with a blanket of patterns (sunlight hitting the leaves of an apple tree in the morning) or have a central focus (a wilting bouquet left for her by the Doris McCarthy housekeeper). Looking over the photographs she’s taken, Freemark intuitively makes connections between the image and her memory of the day to gain inspiration for the second image which she carves into, or out of, the photograph. Instead of a pen, Freemark uses a blade to draw with, cutting line-drawings into the photographs. The end product becomes an object itself, a still life of a still life.

During her month-long residency at Doris McCarthy’s cottage, built in the 1940s, Freemark worked to portray the site’s complex qualities by considering routines, natural light, found objects, and the overlap between interior and exterior spaces—visualized by repeating tropes of windows and reflections. The interior/exterior divide in Freemark’s work also takes the form of landscapes and still-lives, subject matter that Freemark toggles between and often blurs together.

A photograph of a bouquet of flowers sitting on a table (Bouquet/Still Life No.2) is abstracted by a cut out of another bouquet that Freemark held up to the light to create a stencil of the shadow. A cut-out of an apple necessitates the viewer lean into the work to determine the original source material—the payoff, well worth the effort. The distortion of a familiar image into the unfamiliar surprises and delights the viewer who is willing to look long enough to unravel the image.

This series of work was created with the support of the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence program, and the Ontario Heritage Trust. Please join us for an opening reception on Friday November 9th, from 7-9PM.

Casey Roberts: Here & There, October 19th - November 4th, 2018

CASEY ROBERTS
HERE AND THERE
OCTOBER 19TH - NOVEMBER 4TH
VIP PREVIEW: FRIDAY OCTOBER 19TH, 7-9PM

We are pleased to present Casey Roberts' Here and There, Casey Roberts' third exhibition with us in Toronto. Join us for a VIP preview with the artist present on Friday October 19th from 7-9PM. RSVP.

Roberts' work illustrates a fantastic landscape by representing nature's subtle way of dealing with the peculiar aspects in it's relationship with mankind. Glow-in-the-dark butterflies, a pile of precious gems, a whale beckoning us from the sea, are signs of recognition, perhaps even gifts; just as scribbled on trees and sculptures lost in a forest state "I was here". Inspired by his conversation with the landscape, he imagines long monologues when pine forests make him laugh and mountains test his patience.

This is Roberts' third exhibition with Dianna Witte Gallery (formerly parts gallery). Roberts received his degree from the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, IN. He recently exhibited a solo show at the Richard E. Peeler Art Center at Depauw University in September of this year. He has work in numerous collections, including the Indiana State Museum, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the US Department of State, Eli Lilly, Indiana University and more. Robert's lives and works in Indianapolis, IN. 

Jeff Depner: ORGANIZED! September 20th - October 14th, 2018

ORGANIZED!

JEFF DEPNER

SEPTEMBER 21ST - OCTOBER 14TH

We are pleased to present ORGANIZED!, a solo exhibition by Vancouver artist, Jeff Depner.

In this latest series of work, Depner pits architectonic organization against the organic, as a method to explore compositional structure through the relationship between colours. Depner creates a functioning system of parts in constant flux by rethinking, altering and discarding forms throughout his process.

This is Depner's third exhibition with Dianna Witte Gallery (formerly Parts Gallery). Depner received his BFA in Illustration and Design at Capilano University in Vancouver, BC. His work has been exhibited across the United States, Canada and Europe (Basel and Germany). In 2015, Depner exhibited a solo show, NEW POSITIONS, at Art Cologne with Galerie Anke Schmidt. His work has been featured in numerous fairs internationally, including Scope New York, Scope Basel, Art Toronto and Art Cologne. He has been profiled in German Art, Artbox Magazine, Rising Young Artists to keep an Eye On!, Ruby Mag and the Globe & Mail. Depner lives and works in Vancouver, BC.

Summer Salon: July 20th - September 9th, 2018

ANNUAL SUMMER SALON
FT. GALLERY ARTISTS
JULY 20TH - SEPTEMBER 9TH

Stunning photographic paper-cut works from Fiona Freemark, rich floral abstracts from Yangyang Pan, a Douglas Walker luminous 7' whale & more in our summer salon exhibiting now.

Jeffrey Harrison: All My Buttered Bagels

ALL MY BUTTERED BAGELS

JEFFREY HARRISON

JUNE 8TH - 30TH

OPENING RECEPTION: JUNE 8TH, 7-9PM

Parts Gallery is pleased to present ALL MY BUTTERED BAGELS, by Toronto artist Jeffrey Harrison. This will be Parts Gallery's fourth solo exhibition of Harrison's work.

Painting has a myriad of rules that it keeps under wraps, laboured on behind the scenes as to not disrupt the illusion of an effortless masterpiece. There are rules of perspective and composition, ratios, and colour theory. The result is familiar paintings that we’re used to looking at, that we can easily understand and classify. It can get a little boring after awhile.

Jeff Harrison shuns the notion that paintings should have rules. And his paintings are anything but boring. Instead, he lets the painting do what he feels it has to do, and bends the rules of the medium to somehow make it work. And it does: The result is chaotic, a departure from the safety we’ve come to know in paintings. Vibrant colours, flowers, and fluid shapes fill the paintings; as if the amorphous figures are begging to be included, squeezed into the canvas.

Harrison’s paintings are objects that we interact with: they make their physicality known through size, texture, and colour. The energy in them is palatable. ALL MY BUTTERED BAGELS deviates slightly from Harrison’s previous series, with the motif of nature and flowers at the forefront (flowers on acid, albeit). Harrison’s own relationship to nature and gardening influences this motif, with elements from his life incorporated into the paintings.

Looking at Harrison’s paintings, we realize that there’s pleasure in chaos. Our eyes flutter through the work, finding new sections and passageways with each glance. A psychedelic Rorschach Test, we can attribute what we want onto the paintings, and it tells us something about ourselves.

Please join us for an opening reception on Friday June 8th from 7-9PM.

First Light at FCP Gallery: June 4th - July 13th

FIRST LIGHT

OFF-SITE EXHIBITION AT FCP GALLERY

JUNE 4TH - JULY 13TH

Parts Gallery presents six artists’ visual representations of the FIRST LIGHT of summer depicted through vibrant colours, urban gardens, and surf scenes.

The first hint of summer light manifests itself in a feeling: a hopefulness for the cold to thaw, making way for sand tracked in to the house, the ethereal melody of the ice cream truck, the scent of fresh cut lilacs stealthily cut from a neighboring bush, light breaking through trees to cast shadows on the sidewalk.

The artworks exhibited in FIRST LIGHT are visual representations of the summer, but more so, they are representations of what summer feels like. The hopeful ideal of a passage of time without worries or commitments, days and weeks passed without a care in the world.

Despite the wide ranging mediums and subjects that the artists in the show utilise, each perfectly capture the first light of summer. Exhibiting artists include: Kim Atlin, Christine Flynn, Fiona Freemark, Erin McSavaney, Ric Santon and Douglas Walker.

Please join us for an opening reception on Friday June 13th from 7-9PM at the FCP Gallery.

The FCP Gallery

Hours: Monday - Friday 11AM - 3PM

100 King Street West

Toronto, ON  M5X 1A9

Christine Flynn: May 4th - 30th

CHRISTINE FLYNN
SURF
MAY 4TH - 30TH

We are pleased to present "SURF", a series of photographs from Christine Flynn.

By using mixed media techniques, Flynn creates images that are impossible to replicate. The goal of Flynn's work isn't to present a realistic portrayal of what a place looks like, but instead a utopian ideal of what a destination feels like; a kinetic image of a dreamlike setting that exists only in our imaginations.

Flynn blends photography with abstract elements of design - coats of paint and gold leaf are layered on top of an image - to create a photograph with the texture of a painting. Finished with a coat of high-gloss resin, the work is simultaneously contemporary and nostalgic.

Flynn composes images that hinge on nostalgia to ground the viewer. With the advent of Instagram, we have become inundated with travel photographs that are aspirational. Flynn's art pushes against the genre of travel photography whose purpose is to create envy and instead allows us, the viewer, to access a feeling of recognition or belonging in a place we've never been.

"SURF" brings together a collection of photographs from various places that Flynn has traveled to, with the ocean as the defining element. Walking through the show each geographic place becomes indistinguishable from one another, and a feeling of being next to the ocean emerges.

Since her first solo show at Pulse Contemporary Art Far in New York, Flynn's work has been widely exhibited in North America and Europe. Christine exhibits at Parts Gallery in Toronto, as well as galleries in Paris, London, San Francisco, New York, and Boston.