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Issue #05 – Experiencing the world.

After an exciting first year we are eager to kick off year two with a look at some of the ways contemporary Ontario artists address notions of place, identity, community and home through their artwork. How do you see the world around you? What pieces of the landscape stick with you? How does your community affect your identity? Is it possible to create without being influenced by the spaces, places or people around you?

A Cabinet of Wonders, the artwork of Jennie Suddick, by Trish Boon

The first time I came across Jennie Suddick’s work was at the Narwhal Art Project’s exhibition last fall, “The Dazzle: A Cabinet of Wonders.” I remember her charming miniature dioramas of burning trees and awkward glimpses of the communal lives of hairy Sasquatch families. I think I was as attracted to the painstaking amount of work to flock entire families of naked railroad models into furry beasts and fold tiny squares of paper into miniature bursts of fire as I was confused by the oddness of the representations.

Monotype, artwork and article by Max Lupo

You may approach the medium in an architectural fashion, undertaking to manage every aspect of the process, ensuring that the finished work is a fit representation of your initial blueprints. Or, you may approach printmaking as a constant conversation with the process. Through this dialogue, you discover that the process not only speaks, but often acts of its own volition.

Selected Poems, by Sara Pinder

IN THE MIDDLE OF IT: I can tell you which men in the room beat their wives, give out waxed-paper toffee on halloween, or print fake status cards, and i can say whose lawn i ended up on at three a.m. last summer, yelling epithets received by the woodpile, the ratty tarp-covered skidoo, heavy with the pretence of sleep.

Mike Bayne, article by Nicole Armour

Toronto-based artist Mike Bayne’s oil painting China Doll features a diminutive Chinese food restaurant on an unremarkable block of Kingston’s Princess Street. The worn, brick building is resolutely boxy with few flourishes apart from its coloured signage, vaguely Asian awning, and pair of willfully circular windows. The amount of detail in the image is astonishing, especially given its limited colour palette.

Emily Foster, by Emily Foster

I have worked in traditional art forms such as painting, drawing and sculpture, but would love to experiment in photography, fashion design and illustration. I am inspired by works from so-called “low-brow” artists such as Jonathan Viner, Mark Ryden, and Sylvia Ji.

Magnified Landscape, photography by Helena Kvarnöstrom and interview by Chrissy Poitras

Orinigally from Sweden, writer and photographer Helena Kvarnöstrom now lives and works in Toronto. With her trusty film camera she captures moody Southern Ontario landscapes and builds a dialogue about the relationship between a woman and the wilderness.

Buffy Carruthers, work photographed by Michael Grills and article by Chrissy Poitras

These paintings attempt to capture the naïve magic of Mexico and the landscape of the ancient sierras that roll down into the Oaxaca river valley.” In her studio, there are several medium-sized works on beautiful handmade paper spread out among the desks. For me, these one-dimensional, stylized landscapes, typified by deliberately altered angles and dense, pure colours evoke some of the characteristics in folk art.

The Gertrudes, interview with Annie Clifford of the Gertrudes by Melinda Richka

“But influences… plenty. Pete loves everything, especially The Band, Maceo Parker and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album. Paul likes African jazz and math jazz and various other jazzes… Greg seems to really like contemporary indie music (or at least, he plays it a lot around the house). Amanda likes stuff like Stereolab and tUnE-yArDs, and often seems concerned we’re not unusual enough. Matt drives around with a Brian Eno album, and Lucas played me a song recently about a vegan picnic… Personally, I like Irish fiddle music played by old men, and Justin Rutledge. I think we all like PS I Love You and Rueben [deGroot] and False Face.”

Joanne Hui, by Joanne Hui

In my creative practice, I find visual forms that complicate the popular and historic representations of culturally diverse communities. These forms often point to fluid conditions of subjective experience and cultural production. Hybridity, diaspora, and transnationalism are key terms in the context of my work. Specifically, I use comic art to draw Chinese-Canadian historic moments of activism alongside a visual journal of current transnational communities in Canada and China.