January 4 – 15, 2017
Cell Gallery
Mikael Sandblom is an artist who was active in the Toronto art scene in the 1990’s. He has recently developed new works incorporating paint and digital imagery on metal surfaces. His recent work incorporates several modes of image making: photographic imagery, painted architectural scenes done in grisaille, computer manipulated imagery such as the raster patterns & painted stylized water patterns.
The title of this show comes from Ecclesiastes, a text which describes a world that is ephemeral – always passing away. “All rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.”
“I’m presenting impermanence and constant change in the static form of paintings. The paintings are still. It’s the viewer who provides the motion. The eye roves over the surface. It dives into the depth of perspective, it flips back to the flat graphics on the surface. It alternates between seeing the surface and seeing through it. You can’t see the perspective space, the graphic elements, the water surface and the map diagrams all at once. You read these things one at a time; you go back and forth between them. My paintings include a range of subject matter as well as a range of representational techniques. Hand painted elements are stacked over mechanically reproduced images and diagrams. The layering, the imperfections and the brush marks in the paint expose the process of making. Manual craft changes the way we interact with images. The disturbing ruins in Syria in particular, deserve the attention of being manually painted. My intention with this body of work is to create paintings that are visually strong and will get your attention but will resist quick interpretation. The longer the pieces remain ambiguous and mysterious the more I think you’ll see in them; the more they’ll reward you.”