Arthur Desmarteaux & Allison Moore, Micropolis (panoramic view), screen and digital prints on cardboard, 112 x 427 cm, 2010.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Arthur Desmarteaux & Allison Moore: Micropolis 2.0
January 12 – February 18, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Arthur Desmarteaux & Allison Moore, Micropolis (panoramic view), screen and digital prints on cardboard, 112 x 427 cm, 2010.
Open Studio is pleased to present Micropolis 2.0, an exhibition by Montréal-based collaborators Arthur Desmarteaux and Allison Moore from January 12 – February 18, 2012. The exhibition is accompanied by a text by Banff-based artist and writer Lisa Borin.
Arthur Desmarteaux and Allison Moore’s Micropolis is an ever-expanding and evolving installation comprised of collaged screen and digital prints, assembled so they evoke a busy modern commercial street with pedestrians, creatures and vehicles passing by. The installation has an anthropological character inspired by the cityscapes of Québec City, Montréal and Toronto. The installation is “2.5D,” or two and a half dimensions — a modular diorama of cardboard figures and shapes placed at different levels on wooden shelves, covering the perimeter of the gallery walls, including printed elements hanging from the ceiling and the bottom of the shelves. This eclectic installation also includes sections of woodcuts and LCD video screens in the “building windows” showing animated loops and an accompanying soundtrack.The installation explores urban life and the relationships between people and large cities. The enchanted universe presented by Desmarteaux and Moore conveys a sense of wonder, awe and contemplation. Looking though the microscope, viewers are drawn in, entering a strange theatrical dimension that evokes a childhood world filled with twisted dreams and figures.
Arthur Desmarteaux obtained a degree in Visual Arts at the University of Montreal and UQAM in 2003. He has steadily advanced his printmaking practice for the last six years as an active member of Ateliers Graff in Montreal, and has exhibited his work internationally as an invited artist to contemporary printmaking biennales in places such as Trois-Rivières, Quebec; Guanlan, China; Italy, Denmark and Sorcelles, France. Arthur has also participated as resident artist at Martha Street Print Studios in Winnipeg, Queen Street Studios in Belfast, and Engramme in Quebec City. Arthur is a member of the Association of Puppeteers of Quebec [AQM]. He is presently developing a third puppet theatre piece entitled The Conquest of Sorrowland. Arthur is represented by La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa.
Allison Moore is an artist, educator and cultural operator. Originally from the west coast, she is based in Montreal, and has produced projects in Ecuador, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Europe. Allison achieved a BFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at the Concordia University in 2005. She is an active member of Ateliers Graff (Montrea) and has developed new projects in video, animation and interactive computing as an invited artist at Studio XX, Oboro New Media Labs and the Society of Arts and Technology in Montreal. Allison's projects at Studio XX focus on using open source media tools such as Pure Data, Arduino and Blender 3d Game engine to create new media installations. In the summer, she teaches animation and film at Galiano Island Film School in British Columbia.
Together, Moore and Desmarteaux co-founded Egotrip Productions, collaborating together since 2006 to produce puppet performances, public art and exhibitions.
To download a copy of the exhibition brochure, please click here. This exhibition was reviewed by R.M. Vaughan in the Globe & Mail. Click here to read it.
New Notables: Jillian Ditner, Laine Groeneweg & Shogo Okada
January 12 – February 18, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Jillian Ditner, Musical Chairs, 20” x 15.5” (paper), 2010, $250; Laine Groeneweg, Elephas Musculus, mezzotint on paper, 21.25” x 17.5” (paper), 2011, $475; Shogo Okada, Untitled – Black, screenprint on paper, 30” x 30” (paper) 2011, $300.
The New Year sparks New Notables, a group exhibition featuring prints by three emerging artists – Jillian Ditner, Laine Groeneweg and Shogo Okada. Ditner’s screenprints create a sense of shared and individual memory through the use of vernacular imagery. Drawing on such traces through the piecing together of various narratives extracted from old photographs, Ditner's subject matter finds importance as indicators of the past. Okada, with his bright, pop-art styled screenprints on paper, creates abstracted compositions extracted from cartoon images. Groeneweg’s mezzotints on paper peer into the mysterious after-hours meddling of a mad scientist and place the imaginative, cross-bred creatures under a looking glass.
George Gilmour Members’ Gallery
Rob Tavares: Romantically Unapocalyptic (Lyrical Visual)
January 12 – February 18, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired, screen print, 30 x 20 inches, 2011.
Music as necessity, is key to Tavares' creative process, continually influencing creative personal visual interpretation of the poetry of inspired music. Romantically Unapocalyptic (Lyrical Visual) is a series of screenprints that explore how musical lyrics evoke a visual response relating to the romanticizing of fate, kismet and attraction as perceived through popular culture. Rob utilizes manipulated images and abstract illustrations to create personal interpretive visual collages of inspired song lyrics. Rob Tavares is a Toronto based graphic designer and emerging printmaking artist with a focus in screenprinting. He achieved an Honours Diploma in Graphic Design at George Brown College, Toronto in 2005 and previously, a BA in Commerce/Economics at the University of Toronto in 1994. Rob is currently an artist member at Open Studio and has exhibited his work at a number of galleries and art festivals since 2009.
Offsite Projects
Urban Nature
Malton Airport Gallery
Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Pearson Airport, Terminal One
January 19–June, 2012
Using the tradition of printmaking in sculptural compositions, eighteen artists curated from the Open Studio Print Sales Gallery address the intricate and constructed relationship of nature and the city. Featuring: Nadine Bariteau, Yael Brotman, Carlina Chen, Rebecca Cowan, Faye Digulla, Elizabeth Forrest, Isabelle Hémard, Jenn Law, Colin Lyons, Liz Menard, Theresa Morin, Loree Ovens, Parvaneh Radmard, Walter Procska, Penelope Stewart, Jennie Suddick, George Walker and Pawel Zablocki.