IV

Michael Willems
IV
*New* Gallery

Michael Willems, Art Photographer, and Photo-Journalist spent one year documenting the lives of Kim and Robert. To look at this couple, at first glance, they seem to be a perfectly normal couple, albeit with significant age difference, he being several years older than her. Other than that nothing seems amiss, until you walk through one year of their lives as documented in this exhibit. You see they are both recovering junkies.
The most difficult part I have found about writing this article is to do so without going into the pathology of the subject matter. This after all is an Art exhibit, and I chose to view it as such. What Michael has done is created several images that when linked serve as a slow motion documentary. However each piece also stands alone. There are some of the images that if viewed without the overall context escapes the context, and are actually beautiful portraits of two beautiful people. As a matter of fact the one thing that initially disturbed me was that when I viewed each piece separately, I was not disturbed. Michael and I discussed this, and his take is that the exhibit shows that, even as junkies they are still complex humans, not just the emaciated lost in the world heaps of human excrement that we as a collective consciousness think of the addicted amongst us. Indeed there are moments of playfulness and child like abandonment portrayed in the individuals that they are. There is an image of Kim praying and I asked Michael with every bit of cynicism I could muster. "Is she really praying or is she posed?" To which he retorted that nothing was ever posed and he always had his camera at the ready. Are the images toyed with on a computer, again, no. Yet I still have to get through the beauty of these images. As a painter I saw many of them as Dutch masters, with soft endearing light. Never does Michael want you to fear his subjects, but to compassionately draw you into their world. One element I think would have added another dimension to the show would have been a spontaneous sound track, and not the 60's drug laments from the Artists' I-Pod. A little bit of their world recorded as they naturally dialogued day to day. All in all, an effective exhibit if you are not fooled by the beauty of it all.
*new* gallery
906 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M6J 1G6
416-588-1200
Wed-Sun 1-6
info@new-gallery.ca

ABC-Tree-123
Mixed Media On Paper
2009

Wisdom From A-Z

Rob Croxford - 129 Ossington


Rob Croxfords' painted vignettes have 2 distinct facets to them the first being an overt call to nostalgia.
They hearken back to a simpler time of hand painted magazine ads, with images of model airplanes, zeppelins, and flying saucers, toys that a boy of post war America would lie awake at night dreaming of finding under the Christmas tree.
Other images are somewhat more sinister if you prescribe to being religously- politically correct. Images of women hanging the clothes out to dry while gossiping with Marge next door, or bent over the long gone ironing board putting a perfect crease on hubbies clothes.
Not enough though that Mr. Croxford has given us these ponderous images he has chosen to supply us with a written script to his musings on things of yore. Each image has a Title emblazoned as part of the painting, each starting with one of the A-Z of the alphabet, and at the bottom a single line of wisdom.
Each of these small paintings on canvas is skillfully depicted with scrapes and over washes giving them a patina of age. However as much as I don't mind work being exhibited unframed these paintings are sadly lacking that finished touch as the folded corners and edges of the canvas stretching leave a little something to be desired. All in all an exhibit that gives one cause to ponder.

Black & Blue - ABC
Mixed Media On Paper
26" x 36"
2009

A - 9 In Flight
Mixed Media On Paper
26" x 36"
2009

Into 1 - Z

Into 1 - Z
Mixed Media On Paper
26" x 36"
2009

Love Poems

Sogna Di Genova - Propeller Centre

Well again painting is saved. I always marvel at the resurrections of my beloved art form. It has been said by many on many an occasion that the form is in its' coffin, we only need to drive the last nail to end its' reign. This resurrection takes place in the form of a multi-media approach to the painted surface. Sogna deftly applies fabric to the surface in a way reminiscent of the collage of the early cubists, with pre-cut shapes applied to almost define form, but still let our eyes do the thinking.
This series of multimedia paintings utilizes the figurative form, yet what I really see is not much of a departure, actually a lineage from Ms. Di Genovas' previous painted abstracts. I actually have one, purchased a few years ago at Gallery 1313. It is pure abstraction but reminds me of aerial photography, as does the elements of paint and fabric collage she applies to this collection of figures.
Subjectively they appear as dream woven figures, slightly disembodied, with curious objects around them, light bulbs, feathers and others, and I wonder about their necessity to the composition. They seem at times to cause me to wonder more about the dream and less about the pure and simple beauty of the figures.
Her skill as a painter I believe has certainly matured with this series. In discussion with one of the friends of the gallery, we determined that like any genre of art it is crucial that a lineage is followed almost genetically, and it appears as though Sogna has achieved this with elements of last century's modernists. So bravo Sogna on moving the form forward with a subtle look back.
Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts tel:416.504.7142 www.propellerctr.com GALLERY HOURS: Wednesday - Saturday 12-6 pm Sunday 12-5 pm email: gallery@propellerctr.com