COLLEEN MCCARTEN at Angell Gallery

LESS IS MOIRÉ
COLLEEN MCCARTEN
July 15–August 26, 2017

Akin Dupont Member Colleen McCarten is showing at Angel Gallery this summer. Opening reception Saturday July 15 from 2 to 4pm

ANGELL GALLERY is pleased to present Less is moiré, an exhibition of recent stitched paper and woven sculptural works by Toronto-based artist Colleen McCarten. The exhibition runs in the Project Space alongside MINIMAL(ist) EFFORTS, a group show presenting contemporary approaches to minimalist art in Canada.

Moiré is the effect produced when an opaque lined pattern with spaces between the lines is overlaid with another similar pattern. The resulting ‘vibration’ effect is caused by our eyes’ inability to bring the individual layers into focus. In the 1960s, Bridget Riley and other artists associated with Op Art used this effect in their painterly and sculptural examinations of how vision works. At the same time, textile manufacturers, such as Marimekko, influenced fashion and décor by producing fabrics with similar graphic effects.

Colleen McCarten’s practice draws inspiration from such artists, as well as minimalists like Sol Lewitt, Agnes Martin and Eva Hesse (who pioneered the use of materials like latex and plastic in her work), and textile artists like Anni Albers and Sheila Hicks. McCarten plays with creating illusions using tangible materials. She has been sewing for 15 years and started working with textiles because she enjoys creating using tactile approaches. McCarten became hooked on weaving while attending OCADU:  “I loved the idea of creating something substantial from nothing but a simple repeated line”. 

McCarten works on an industrial sewing machine and wooden loom. Her challenge, she says, is to introduce “expressive gestures” into mediums that don’t readily allow for them. “Weaving and sewing don’t have the same gestural openness as painting or drawing as you have to pre-plan the settings of the machine” she explains. One technique McCarten employs is encasing her woven pieces in rubber, allowing them to hold their shapes after she moulds the forms. In the sewn works, McCarten carefully guides the paper through the machine to prevent snags and tears; however, slight variations in the repeated shapes convey the presence of her hand. “Every material and approach has its challenges,” she says “but, ultimately, I enjoy simplicity. Simple can be beautiful and seductive.”

– Bill Clarke

Toronto Design Offsite Festival (TO DO) 2018 Exhibitor Registration

The 8th annual TO DO Festival runs January 15-21, 2018. Independently-produced events, exhibitions, and window installations are integral to the Festival’s structure. TO DO welcomes all who want to present, discuss, demonstrate, or exhibit design in any field and/or related disciplines.

2018 Exhibitor Registration

Deadline: Monday, October 2, 2017 by 11:59pm EST.
Exhibitors include independent designers, design firms, local businesses, academic and cultural institutions, and students. Exhibitors are responsible for arranging their own venue in the city of Toronto, including spaces such as galleries, studios, workshops, cafés, schools, cinemas, and businesses. Window installations must run for the entire week, events must take place during the week, and exhibitions must run during some part of the week. Installations and exhibitions can start before and/or end after Festival Week.

Thematic Exhibition: Matter

Deadline: all submissions are due Friday, September 22, 2017 by 11:59pm EST.
Recycling is a daily act for the modern civic-minded citizen. Its intrinsic value instilled following the “3Rs” campaign of the late 1970s, we diligently sort our waste for processing elsewhere. But the methods, proximity, scale, inputs, and outcomes of recycling processes are massively diverse. Matter explores acts of material transformation and change. It considers the possibility of material memory in which use leaves a mark, whether visible or invisible; the history and future of recycling processes from a personal to a global scale; and the mundane and ritualistic aspects of material use and applications. Matter asks the question: what happens when we take a long-term view of material life?

Matter invites submissions from artists and designers working in all mediums and formats. TO DO are open to projects expressed in 2- or 3-dimensions, digital or analog, whether they be object- or concept-based.

TO DO Talks Symposium: Designing the Future of Work

Deadline: all submissions are due Friday, September 22, 2017 by 11:59pm EST. 
The world is increasingly digital and with it, so too is work. With a widespread shift towards greater connectivity, and robots capable of performing complex tasks, the landscape of work has changed dramatically, rendering a future that is less predictable and more complex. This new landscape offers a rousing combination of opportunities and challenges. Yet, jobs are increasingly unstable, or have disappeared altogether.

Design plays a major role in reshaping the way we work. It helps us imagine different futures, transitioning “old ways” of doing things, to new and “better” ways of doing and being. We seek designers and thinkers to give presentations that inspire. Talks may be about current research or case studies, new products or technologies, spaces or experiences, speculative design or strategies, or new processes or policies. TO DO welcome diverse perspectives and responses to the theme of designing the future of work.

Call for Host Venues

Deadline: all submissions are due Friday, July 7, 2017 by 11:59pm EST.
If you have a venue you’d like to have activated with a window installation, event, or exhibition. Potential venues include spaces in the City of Toronto such as shops, galleries, studios, cafés, schools, and cinemas. By submitting to this call for host venues, you agree to host a creative project by an artist or designer during Festival Week, January 15-21, 2018. The duration and type of participation is entirely determined by you when you make your submission. Host venues pay a registration fee, and provide the venue free of charge to the artist or designer.

Call for Artists

Gallery 1313 Summer Rentals

Deadline: June 14, 5pm
Gallery 1313 in Toronto has some Summer rental availability in July & August in both the Main & the Process Gallery. Interested artists should email director@g1313.org with proposals including images. The Main Gallery has over 135ft of running wall and is about 1200 sq. ft. (good for group exhibits) while the Process Gallery has about 33 ft. of running wall which is good for smaller solo exhibits, video works or installations. There is also some availability in the Fall for the Process Gallery. More details are on the website or call Phil Anderson 416-536-6778. Gallery 1313 also has availability for new members.

Visuals Initiative of South Asia (V.I.S.A.) - Arts Festival

Deadline: June 16th, 2017 (11:59 pm Eastern Time)
Visuals Initiative of South Asia (V.I.S.A.) - Arts Festival would like to invite Artists from across Canada to make digital submissions for their annual Art Festival and Exhibition - “Creative & Cultural Celebrations” aimed at promoting South Asian Art. V.I.S.A. - Arts Festival is a curated exhibition and welcomes all levels of local and regional artists across Canada. V.I.S.A intend exhibiting a variety of two and three-dimensional art across all media including painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, textiles, sculpture and mixed media. Select participating artists will have the opportunity to offer free workshops of their art form to public during the exhibition. ALL SUBMISSIONS ARE FREE!

Expressive Arts Therapy Training Program

The Create Institute offers a verity of training programs in Expressive Arts Therapy. The program is designed to immerse students in an intensive, arts-based educational process that is beneficial for their professional development as expressive arts therapists, as well as for their personal and creative growth. The curriculum includes experiential, practical and theoretical training both in class and as offered through a variety of practicum placement sites.

Akin International: COOL – THE ARCTIC OUTSIDERS

Marius

COOL - THE ARTIC OUTSIDERS June 29th to September 1st 2017 Norway’s Museum for Outsider Art

Akin member Jordan MacLachlan's upcoming show COOL – THE ARCTIC OUTSIDERS will open June 29th Norway’s Museum. The exhibit will take place in a new gallery in the center of Harstad during The Northern Norway Festival. MacLachlan, was invited to exhibit her clay vignettes at the festival along with works from other participating Arctic countries: Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Marius (above) depicts the dispassionate response of visitors watching the matter-of-fact killing of the giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo in 2014. Eighteen-month old Marius was a healthy, but genetically unsuitable, giraffe who was fed his favourite breakfast before he was shot, chopped up, and fed to the lions. MacLachlan’s work bears witness to humanities complex relationship with animals.

Day Trip Opening Reception June 10th

Gallery 555 opens a new exhibition June 10th 2-5, featuring the work of 8 Toronto based painters, the exhibition explores themes related to leisure and impermanence. The artists explore these themes through various strategies including depicting the nuanced relationship between humans and their environment in the experience of  leisure, the enjoyment and exploitation of nature, depictions of fantastical and manufactured landscapes, and through the tradition of nature-morte and the impermanence of the human experience.  

Working in a range of traditions from abstraction to still-life to surrealism to expressionism the works in the exhibition range  in use of materials from traditional oil paints, to tree bark, to sparkles and inkjet, to wax and carbon pencil and more.    

Amanda Baron
Chen Cao
Kaitlin Johnson
Vanessa McKernan
James Olley
Ester Pugliese
Cortney Stevenson
Daniel St -Amant

Most of the artists will be present at the opening reception.

Gallery hours:
Saturday June 17th   2 - 6pm
Saturday June 24th   2 - 6pm
Saturday July 8th     2 - 6pm

or by appointment:  info@gallery555.ca

Call For Artists

Artist Project 2018

February 22-25, 2018
Deadline to apply: September 15, 2017
Artists Project 2018 invites visual artists of all mediums to submit an application to be a part of this exclusive juried art fair showcasing top contemporary artists from Canada and abroad. Artist Project 2018 takes place at the Better Living Centre, Exhibition Place in Toronto.
 

Sonic Reflections

Deadline: June 30, 2017
New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) invites artists of all ages and nationalities to submit works on the theme Sonic Reflections for consideration in New Adventures in Sound Art’s 2018 programming. Sound by its nature reflects in different ways depending on the environment in which it is experienced. These reflections help to give a place its character but they also can obscure elements of an environment. NAISA would like to celebrate the opening of its new facility - NAISA North Media Arts Centre - in South River Ontario with programming that is reflective of the past as well as using that reflection to inform future possibilities. For its 2018 programming, NAISA is interested in submissions that address the notion of Sonic Reflections and creative ways that this can be shared.
 

Art Gallery of Burlington – Ceramic Courtyard Exhibition

Deadline: June 30, 2017
The Annual Courtyard Installation at the AGB is a site specific installation of ceramic work (some mixed media is permitted as long as the work is primarily ceramic), that reflects some aspect of the space, ranging from the architecture, to the plantings, to the social interaction contained within the space. The artist is encouraged to engage with the water feature and is asked that much of the work is installed on the ground cover and the walls. This exhibition space is used as a public area within the building, including a space for people to eat lunch, private receptions and weddings; the artist is asked to consider that the installation does not interfere with these other uses. This exhibition is open to mid or late career artists with a proven exhibition record. for more information Tel: 905-632-7796 ext. 303 Email: denis@agb.life

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Upcoming Visual and Digital Arts Programs

Joar Nango, It was all a dream (2013)

Visual + Digital Arts programs at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity offer opportunities for artists to engage with world-renowned faculty and peers to gain new insights into the development of their work. Access to facilities and expertise in photography, sculpture, printmaking, papermaking, ceramics, fibre, painting, digital media, video, and sound, as well as curatorial studies are available. Here are a list of some of the deadlines coming up.

Mountain Photography Residency
September 2 – September 9, 2017
Application Deadline: June 7, 2017
Faculty: Cory Richards
Banff Mountain Photography Residency provides photographers with an opportunity to learn how to tell compelling visual narratives through images. Individualized interaction with celebrated National Geographic photographer Cory Richards will allow participants to address aspects of the creative process, artistic voice, storytelling, and authenticity in their mountain-themed photographic project.

Inherent Design
November 6 – December 8, 2017
Application Deadline: July 5, 2017
Faculty: Joar Nango, Ursula Johnson
This five-week program will explore several global Indigenous perspectives on architecture, traditional design methodologies, and materials. Participants will delve into the history, function, and contemporary explorations and appropriations of Indigenous design and architecture. As artists, architects, designers, and community leaders, we will discuss our respective roles in the process of place-making.

Printmaking Studio Practicum
September 5, 2017 – August 31, 2018
Application Deadline: June 21, 2017
The Printmaking Practicum program offers practical experience in the areas of screenprinting, intaglio, lithography, typography, digital printing and software, fibre, papermaking, and training in printmaking studio operation for support of artistic practice. 

Sculpture Studio Practicum
September 5, 2017 – August 31, 2018
Application Deadline: June 21, 2017
The Sculpture Practicum program offers practical experience in the areas of tool maintenance and safety, woodworking with hand tools and heavy equipment (table saw, band saw, planer, jointer, miter saw), metal working and metal casting (bronze and aluminum), and training in sculpture studio operation for support of artistic practice.