Clement
Ana Ghookassian, Karice Mitchell and Eszter Rosta
Opening: Thursday, July 20 (5-9 pm)
‘Clement’
an exhibit by Ana Ghookassian, Eszter Rosta and Karice Mitchell
The city of Toronto has a direct central identity that can be traced back to the hybridity of its urbanism. These identities are so often rooted in both human and architecture that we sought the opportunity to create a show highlighting the relationship between the urbanist and nature. This is often considered an overanalyzed or overplayed relationship, but as young artists we felt the need to examine it through the lens of Toronto and the visual literature available to gallery-goers and their cultures.
The main goal of the show lies in its analysis of the materials used and implemented by the artists as an examination and exploration of human intervention. Staging encounters with materials that have an immediate historical presence and a past, with continuous undertones of urban representations of technique and material, we would like to display a number of drawings and prints, along side some sculptural pieces. An important aspect of the exhibit is that we have chosen to conceptually approach our materials. A number of the drawings will implement the idea of outside forces, and things beyond control to manipulate the materials and images to create abstract work. The two dimensional pieces also encompass direct relationships with nature, with influences that are further used as a trajectory to truly leave the realm of the identifiable, to the more atmospheric.
Tensions are bound to exist through conceptual approaches to the method. By using the urban and often advanced techniques available to us as students in a modern institution, we wanted to showcase the duality that might exist in development, and the natural human clock. This concept of duality sometimes has a strenuous effect of the one-on-one relationship that is meant to be constant with the natural, and by using limited palettes, and often minimal forms, our methods are conceptually approached where process and materiality, and their trajectory from nature, are perhaps most significant.
The show hopes to not only visually engage the atmosphere of Gallery 50’s surrounding neighborhoods, but also connect with the patrons of art and design within the area. With the use of atmospheric yet minimal prints and drawings, we hope to subtly evoke to the viewers ideas regarding human activity on the natural. Of course, a key source of inspiration for the show comes from studies of certain plants, and what will be presented will be the collaboration and interpretation of this concept as an extended body of work. Furthermore, by utilizing subdued and muted materials such as poplar wood and canvas cloth for a number of hanging sculptures, we hope to engage both the historic practice of human mass production through the natural world, as well as material imprint on humans. Asking question like; “what does this object mean to me?” or “am I a part of the local consuming market?”, we would like for the materiality of the work to be unequivocally present, and usher to the viewer the context of his or her everyday surrounding of these materials.
GALLERY 50
50 Gladstone Ave
Toronto
416.535.6957
