Gallery One

Derek Sullivan: It is More Difficult to Hit a Moving Target

Derek Sullivan’s artwork is predicated on the quotation. From Modernism to Conceptualism he samples and remixes the vocabulary of art. It is More Difficult to Hit a Moving Target features several key works produced by the Toronto artist over the last six years including including the significant installations Endless Kiosk and Manuscript for Wattle and Daub, alongside a selection of his Poster Drawings, sculptural objects, textiles and print-on-demand books. Working in a variety of media, Sullivan’s investigations demonstrate a restless and inquisitive nature that questions accepted notions of authorship and originality. As an artist, he quotes the work of his influences as a means of disrupting existing codes and continuosly generating new forms and ideas.

Gallery Two

Patrick Cull: Gravity Paintings

Gravity Paintings is a body of work that Patrick Cull has produced using sign shop techniques and materials. Mounting carefully assembled layers of coloured vinyl directly onto PVC, the shapes are then precisely cut using a CNC router. Suggesting a collision between Hard-edge abstraction and the geometric designs of a Spirograph, Cull’s work addresses many of the concerns of Post-painterly abstraction: flatness, optical clarity and the lack of gesture. Collecting eight works completed over the last two years, this exhibition marks the first significant survey of this Waterloo region based artist’s work.

Ticket to Ride

September 13-October 30, 2010

Opening Reception:
Thursday, September 16, 5:00-9:00 pm

Ticket to Ride will be the inaugural fall exhibition at UWAG. The exhibition explores the uneasy mix of wonder and disorientation experienced at carnivals, parades and midways. The thematic groupshow features a selection of recent works including photography by Dianne Bos, paintings by Dan Kennedy, an installation by Niall Donaghy and an audio work by Anitra Hamilton.

In celebration of the theme Big Thinkers, in conjunction with 50th Anniversary of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo, UWAG will be also be presenting a preview of new paintings by Art Green, retired Professor Emeritus and influential member of Faculty in the Fine Arts Department for 30 years.

Dianne Bos, Stampede Carousel, (Ride), Calgary, 2005
Chromogenic print, 76 x 76 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and NewZones Gallery, Calgary

Dan Kennedy, The Voice Mansion (detail), 2006-2008
Oil on canvas, 274 x 152 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Edward Day Gallery, Toronto

Niall Donaghy, Labyrinth Coaster (detail), 2009
Basswood, birch plywood, masonite, 381 x 381 x 82 cm
Photo by J.T. McVeigh

UWAG will be closed from July – September.

We will reopen in the Fall with the first exhibition from our new Director/ Curator Ivan Jurakic.

Please stay tuned.

INSTRUMENTS

Sasha Nelson
MFA Thesis Exhibition
June 14th – July 9th, 2010

Exploring intersections of occultism and commodity culture, University of Waterloo MFA candidate Sasha Nelson’s “Instruments” installation leads viewers along a winding path with ten mixed media sculpture-paintings stationed along the way.

June 14th – July 9th 2010.

Hours:

Monday/ Wednesday             11 – 3
Tuesday/ Thursday                9 – 12
Friday/ Saturday/ Sunday     Closed

Join us Friday, May 14th, 6 – 9pm for the
Closing Reception of This Site is Under Construction.

Artist in attendance.  Please note the gallery will only be open for the closing reception, not regular hours.

This Site is Under Construction, Installation view, 2010.

This Site is Under Construction, Installation view, 2010.
Images courtesy of Michael Capobianco.

INSTRUMENTS

Sasha Nelson’s MFA Thesis Exhibition
June 14th – July 9, 2010

Image courtesy of Sasha Nelson.

for more information on Sasha Nelson, please view  www.sashaleenelson.com.

MICHAEL CAPOBIANCO

THIS SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

APRIL 20TH – MAY 14TH, 2010

Closing Reception: Friday, May 14th, 6-9pm

“In my work as a painter, I focus on virtual territories in the pursuit of painterly adaptation and image re-configuration. The sites I am currently building pictorially reference my liminal position: of moving and being in-between places and states of consciousness vis-à-vis the spaces of the real and the virtual. It is through this inability to articulate my specific location between two spaces that a new form of visual order opens up, oscillating between conditions of deconstruction and construction.”

Michael Capobianco is a Toronto-based multi-media artist working with the mediums of photography, digital art, projection, painting and installation. His current body of work investigates the effects of new media and digitization on our experiential perceptions of space and place. His attention is directed towards subjects which are spaces in flux – specific locales of construction and building sites that are in-between states of development – placing emphasis on the mechanized devices that fabricate the new structures. Capobianco is interested in creating seemingly spontaneous and optically warped immersive spaces; alternative architectural environments which subvert interpretations of two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms of visual presentation and recognition. The work aims to reveal the active capabilities of outward appearance and illusionistic staging as it relates to both the picture and its support. Capobianco sees his paintings functioning as dynamic screens, projecting unnervingly out into the real space of the spectator, questioning the illusionary space that exists on the other side of the screen and its framed support.

“Everything that surrounds or projects in front of the viewer is a “bad build”, as slick graphic line and bold geometric form painted on canvas or metal is fastened to, or suspended from, crude supports, creating a visually disorienting and aggressive stimulation of the viewer’s senses.”

The painting installation creates the conditions for viewing and experiencing these illusionary image constructions in real-time. The title alludes not only to the on-line, virtual space of the computer, but also quotes the physical spaces of building and urban development sites. The particular site indicated in the title refers to the nature of the image – as being a site under construction, as contemporary painting interests are directed towards the re-calibration and construction of pictorial representation. In the gallery space, the representational forms employed in the making of a space within a space are reminiscent of those found on construction sites. Similarly, like construction and computer imaging sites, manoeuvrability can be tricky. Inside, the paintings are presented in various ways: hanging directly on the un-treated plywood, projecting out from the walls, or suspended in mid-air. Capobianco views the installation, “like the paintings, it too transforms and oscillates between conditions of deconstruction and construction, and like new media works, addresses the role of the viewer, represents space and, realizes the illusion.”

From April 12 – April 19th the gallery will be closed for the installation of Michael Capobianco’s MFA Thesis Exhibition,  This Site is Under Construction.

The exhibition will be on view April 20th through May 14th.  Please join us for the Closing Reception on May 14th, 6 – 9pm.

Exhibition Hours:

Monday – Friday:    11:00 – 4:30
Saturday, Sunday:  Closed

PLEASE NOTE:  The closing reception will be Friday, May 14th, 2010.