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INTRODUCTIONS |
| Ben Cope, Aondrea H. Maynard, Colin Smith, & Brad Woodfin |
| September 16 - Oct 16, 2010 |
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| Group Show |
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The Weiss Gallery is very excited to welcome four new artists to the gallery this fall. In celebration, we will be showcasing an array of their artwork throughout September 2010. EXHIBITION DETAILS: Photographer Ben Cope is famed for his fashion photography. We are now seeing Cope make a move into the contemporary art world. He mastered creative body postures and inventive angles while working with couture, and we see this unique skill being brought to his artworks. One of his initial projects titled "Polaroid Body Study" makes use of these creative postures in an entirely new way; close-ups and cropped sections of nudes are printed on scratchy faded surfaces. The works are at once gentle and beautiful, as well as haunting and fervent. In being free from fashion composition obligations, Cope is able to truly explore the human form with his own style. We are really excited to introduce Cope's new works into the gallery. Painter Aondrea H. Maynard's inspiration comes from her own connections with the natural world around her, and her observations of others relating to their own natural environments. She has likened her layering of color on the canvas to preserving her own and dreams, and the "moments in silence and abstraction" which are eternally tied to nature. Her gradual washes of color over the canvas are patient and transparent, the effect entrances the viewer with a calm, astral serenity. Often Maynard uses maps, pages of old books, and sheets of music as the first layer on the canvas prior to painting. These "human recordings" and symbols are traces of our personage throughout time, elements that denote human beings and their artistic sign systems, and work on a visual level for the viewer adding intriguing perceptible textures to please the eye. Faint recognizable landscapes will be seen in some of Maynard's newest paintings.The artist says that her work featured in this opening is a "modern interpretation of nature" and that the "dreamy, lush, slightly abstract landscapes" are "all about light". We are especially excited to unveil this series of work, not simply because of these especial landscapes, but because Maynard has painted on beautiful birchwood oval canvases that are unusual and rare. Local Calgarian Colin Smith pinpoints his 20 thousand kilometer motorcycle trip from Calgary through the West coast of North America, Mexico, and South America as the start of his career as a photographer. He recounts this journey in a part Jack Kerouac, part Hunter S. Thompson fashion, with a more rugged and down-to-earth viewpoint. We see this magical biking journey continue to inspire his photography as the artist comes across as having a clear head, and still has a wondrously adventuristic view about the world. For instance, his series of 'Abandoned Landscapes' Smith projects crisp outdoor landscapes with a camera obscura (the projection of the obscura is upside down) onto interiors of unkempt structures. Colin says that "the camera obscura reveals the reclamation of nature in the abandoned landscape", but it also projects the wrong-side-up values of the dilapidated built environment, while simultaneously giving a nod to photography's own ancestry. Pretty cool, huh? We think so, especially because this series is but one of Colin's impressive projects coming to The Weiss Gallery. Oil painter Brad Woodfin grew up near to both northern US coasts. Woodfin spent his childhood in historic Marblehead Massachusetts, a maritime town in New England on the Northeast Coast. He then studied printmaking and painting at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington on the Northwest coast. Once described as "James Audubon's older, more complex brother" Woodfin paints animals. It could be said that his bi-costal background has something to do with these woodsy creatures; they come across as very regal and classic in the distinct New England aesthetic inspired by hunting through thick deciduous forests, yet also portray fauna that is indicative of the Pacific Northwest. The works come across as evocative yet still playful and approachable. Many have compared Woodfin's style to that of 17th Century Dutch painting because of his animals look as though they are stepping out of the darkness into light. Woodfin now lives in Montréal. |
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Nomads - France Jodoin |
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| October 21 - Nov 20, 2010 |
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| View Announcement 's work | View Exhibition Images |
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This fall The Weiss Gallery is delighted to showcase a series of new work by France Jodoin in "Nomads". France Jodoin's impassioned seascapes are both whimsical and theatrical as one, a feat which few are able to accomplish. Nomads will be the unveiling of the artist's newest paintings, and for the first time at The Weiss Gallery, Jodoin will be including prints in this fall show! In this evolution of Jodoin's legacy of painting, emphasis will be placed on movement from place to place. The artist herself says that even though there are no recognizable human figures, "perhaps the absence of people implies movement, their departure from another place". In these canvases we see the traces of people, and evidence of civilization. Many of these new works contain both ships and architectural elements. Viewers have often concluded that the combination of built environment and boats calls to mind Venice, Italy. Jodoin says that she has not been to Venice and does not derive her images from its seascape, but rather "the images are formed as (she) paints". It could definitely be said that Jodoin's built environments are continuing to become more refined, and her overall touch much lighter. One wonders whether nomadic movement from place to place occurs over a long period of time because edifices in this series feel as though they are remembrances of times past, perhaps from antiquity and even from a more recent European legacy. Jodoin herself says that the works are rooted in transitional movement, displacement, restlessness, but also tranquility, peacefulness and settlement. She speaks to the fact that these ideas are somewhat contradictory to one and other. In these notions Jodoin is right on target - throughout human existence, from the 15th century onward and throughout urbanization, migration has always had a paradoxical effect on populations, settlements, and individual people. Transience is both positive and negative, unnerving and soothing at the same time. These paintings serve as memory and monument to these contradictions, and they do it well. In her prints for Nomads, Jodoin depicts opposite subject-matter. These works are inky, expressive, figures. Their voluptuous body-types are reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf figurines, and hearken Willem de Kooning's Woman series. With a pinch of Egon Schiele, Jodoin's full, sweeping strokes have their own distinguishing sophistication and grace. Her gestures are especially satisfying to the viewer because interesting structures, patterns, and crackles animatedly exist within the inky lines. Because this is the first time we have acquired any of Jodoin's prints, we are especially excited, and are very much looking forward to sharing them with you as well!
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