Tom Ngo
Invalids
Lennox Contemporary Gallery

I've considered the show's title "INVALIDS " suggesting something broken, somehow dysfunctional, and yes Tom has presented us with images of post modernist machinations that have no obvious function, and as machines or structures couldn't possibly work. Tom also suggests that his vision is somehow rooted in absurdity and humour. I can see how he has had a good chuckle either with or at the Bauhaus. Yet all this said I would say that these are rather serious almost cynical images that portray post modernism as it actually is. Tom has reassured me that all things architectural are doomed to suffer their own trade of vision for lust. As absurd and unworkable as these images seem to be I see them wherever urban society thrusts itself forward into a world of mine is bigger and better than yours. An urban world where the banality of mushrooming condos glorify the vision of architectural absurdity. They don't F%#@**ng work.
Trained as an Architect Mr. Ngo has slyly used gypsum board, drywall to the rest of us, and old faded drafting paper as his backdrop. This pleases me to no end. Being a painter and lifelong construction worker I love to see common construction materials used to defy the insistence of the academic world of art making to be relegated to the same old same old. His obvious skill as a draftsman shows through with his confident line and bold geometry. These drawings resonate with an exacting mathematical relationship with we mere mortals that live and work within. His colours are on the soft side but never invisible. Balance after all is the rigueur.
Tom Ngo's vision of our invalid world is on the walls of the Lennox Contemporary Gallery, 12 Ossington Ave. Toronto, 416-924-7964 from Sept. 3rd - 20th.