A Brave New World – Sep 30 – Oct 25

Oumou Nasri

• Draft #1, Anthropocene Notes
• Collection Earth Collaborative (Oumou Nasri)
• Photo Print on Canvas
• 14” x 21”
• $990.00 (print on display at Gallery 1313)

There is no lock down anymore, but this is the COVID-19 world. This image explores our impact on nature and natures impact on us. All systems of the earth push and pull on each other. Our plastic finds the same shores as the sea tangle in the waves. We are one with nature.

STEVE STOBER

• RISE UP
• archival digital inkjet print
• 13” x 19”

The streets are now quiet, the killing has finally stopped. After the U.S. uprising as a result of the Presidential recount and election spilled over into Canada  matching the death rate from Covid-19, all that remains is a surreal stillness.  The smell of death is in the air.  Welcome to the future.

• www.stevestober.com

STEVE STOBER

• BODY BAG NO. 1
• silver gelatin print
• 11” x 14”

The streets are now quiet, the killing has finally stopped. After the U.S. uprising as a result of the Presidential recount and election spilled over into Canada  matching the death rate from Covid-19, all that remains is a surreal stillness.  The smell of death is in the air.  Welcome to the future.

• www.stevestober.com

Isabella Presnal

• The Invisible Fighters #4
• 2020
• Collection Earth Collaborative (Isabella Presnal)
• Digital Photography
• 22” x 28.5”

Global masses called for change, in September of 2019. These marked some of the largest strikes. In Helsinki alone, 18,000 people gathered in front of the Parliament House on the 27th, many of whom are under the age of 20. This is a collection of altered images that remove those holding protest signs, highlighting the younger generations. Often in the news, their youth is used to undermine them, so what happens if they aren’t shown? Others must reflect upon themselves, are they filling the empty space? One would hope that the voices would still ring.

Isabella Presnal

• The Invisible Fighters #7
• 2020
• Collection Earth Collaborative (Isabella Presnal)
• Digital Photography
• 22” x 27.5”

Global masses called for change, in September of 2019. These marked some of the largest strikes. In Helsinki alone, 18,000 people gathered in front of the Parliament House on the 27th, many of whom are under the age of 20. This is a collection of altered images that remove those holding protest signs, highlighting the younger generations. Often in the news, their youth is used to undermine them, so what happens if they aren’t shown? Others must reflect upon themselves, are they filling the empty space? One would hope that the voices would still ring.

Isabella Presnal

• The Invisible Fighters #3
• 2020
• Collection Earth Collaborative (Isabella Presnal)
• Digital Photography
• 22” x 28.5”

Global masses called for change, in September of 2019. These marked some of the largest strikes. In Helsinki alone, 18,000 people gathered in front of the Parliament House on the 27th, many of whom are under the age of 20. This is a collection of altered images that remove those holding protest signs, highlighting the younger generations. Often in the news, their youth is used to undermine them, so what happens if they aren’t shown? Others must reflect upon themselves, are they filling the empty space? One would hope that the voices would still ring.

William Tyler

The theme of this piece is the Governments have used this time of the Pandemic to pass and gain leverage on their own personal agenda and gains . While we deal with a worldwide pandemic and staying safe Governments are using money and resources to fight each other and combat necessary Civil rights protests and movements that it’s people are fighting for.

Mikael Sandblom

• “Full Fathom Five“
• 2020
• Digital Composite
• 18″ x 18″

There’s a passage in the Tempest that describes a body sunk deep under water. Rather than decay, it has undergone a ‘sea-change’ into something ‘rich and strange’. 

All of society is going through a transformation now.  We won’t know what the result will be until well after the pandemic, but we can hope that many things will change for the better.

• Website
• Instagram
• Newsletter Sign–up

Mikael Sandblom

• “Superman“
• 2020
• Digital Composite
• 18″ x 18″

Pride goes before the fall.  The pandemic and climate change will teach us humility.  If humans are to survive, it will be by getting along with each other, and the natural world, not by trying to dominate. Hubris is our most dangerous trait. 

• Website
• Instagram
• Newsletter Sign–up

Eva Lewarne

• “Between Two Worlds“
• acrylic on canvas
• 48 x 36 in

Between Two Worlds is about standing on the cusp between between social control and social investment. The world is socially and politically moving in two separate directions, authoritarianism and fascism on the one hand and a green, ecco revival embracing compassion as modus operandi on the other. We are caught between powers that want us to regress back to slave days where women slaved in the kitchen, Blacks had no voice and industry ruled and a new renaissance acknowledging that all life is sacred.

Huaijun Wen

• “Intergrowth“
• Collection Earth Collaborative (Huaijun Wen)
• 2020
• Digital Prints
• 40” x 90”

COVID-19 has made me feel a connection with my houseplants more than ever. We use houseplants as ornamentation, something that serves a decorative and supplementary purpose. And yet, plants are full of vigor. They certainly communicate and adapt, only done in a much more delicate manner than we do. They are living, breathing creatures, sharing with us the same plot of land, sunlight and air. They provide the means to sustain life on earth, while taking in pollution and providing shelter. I use these images to emphasize on the importance of plants in our lives. I wish for people to see them as a necessity and treat them with respect. 

Fei Ji

• “Protest No. 1“
• 2020
• Oil on Canvas
• 24 x 36 in

I am a figurative painter in Toronto. I try to observe life free of distraction, and I work from a variety of physical and digital environments. I am inspired by Auerbach, Doig, Freud, Velazquez, and many others.

Fei Ji

• “Protest No. 2“
• 2020
• Oil on Canvas
• 24 x 36 in

I am a figurative painter in Toronto. I try to observe life free of distraction, and I work from a variety of physical and digital environments. I am inspired by Auerbach, Doig, Freud, Velazquez, and many others.

Catharine Somerville

• “Spirit Eye” –  the spirits are watching.

Utopia, an ideal state- but what ideal state?  I consider Huxley’s Utopia, but also Huxley’s real world- and my own. Questions rise regarding my existential being and I constantly seek a spiritual path that feels threatened in a world run by science. In Sioux Lookout, Northern Ontario, I was fortunate to meet a shaman who guided me on a path of discovery.

Catharine Somerville

• “Utopia/Dystopia”

Utopia, an ideal state- but what ideal state?  I consider Huxley’s Utopia, but also Huxley’s real world- and my own. Questions rise regarding my existential being and I constantly seek a spiritual path that feels threatened in a world run by science. In Sioux Lookout, Northern Ontario, I was fortunate to meet a shaman who guided me on a path of discovery.

Jessica Dawn Darzinskas

• Allan Gardens (1/2), 2019
• Accessible Nature
• Collection Earth Collaborative (Jessica Dawn Darzinskas)
• Digital Photography
• 40” x 27”

Jose  Cifuentes  

• TANGLES BURNT 
• 30 x 40″
• Mixed Media on Recycled Canvas.
• 2020

New challenges coming from all sides, bringing a sense of uncertainty that is making us just tired. There is a need to see with new eyes, to cherish instead of destroying, to untangle ourselves from traditions and institutions that delay the future our society is craving to build.

There is hope, but some destruction is necessary to begin construction. The struggle has been the same throughout our history: freedom of self, and we will not stop until we reach it. In my personal practice that is my purpose, to send a message of freedom that starts from within and spreads to our communities, empowering us, exposing our bravery in the face of adversity.

Jose Cifuentes is a thirty-five-year-old mixed media abstract artist from Medellin, Colombia. Jose moved his life and practice to Toronto, Canada, to find inspiration for his current chapter of creation. Known for manifesting varied visual representations of freedom, his art is a mixture of thick knife strokes with free-hand illustrations on canvas and recycled surfaces.

Jose  Cifuentes  

• FACING THE DRAGONS 1
• 9.75 x 41.25″
• Mixed Media on Recycled Wood Board.
• 2020

New challenges coming from all sides, bringing a sense of uncertainty that is making us just tired. There is a need to see with new eyes, to cherish instead of destroying, to untangle ourselves from traditions and institutions that delay the future our society is craving to build.

There is hope, but some destruction is necessary to begin construction. The struggle has been the same throughout our history: freedom of self, and we will not stop until we reach it. In my personal practice that is my purpose, to send a message of freedom that starts from within and spreads to our communities, empowering us, exposing our bravery in the face of adversity.

Jose Cifuentes is a thirty-five-year-old mixed media abstract artist from Medellin, Colombia. Jose moved his life and practice to Toronto, Canada, to find inspiration for his current chapter of creation. Known for manifesting varied visual representations of freedom, his art is a mixture of thick knife strokes with free-hand illustrations on canvas and recycled surfaces.

Katrina Herrndorf

• FOREIGN ASSETS
• European & Asian Money, Paper Bags, Mesh
• 34C (9”x27”)
• $500

A Brave New World. We have collectively learned a new bravado to deal with this difficult and frightening time. I hope my artwork might bring a lighter note to this darkness.

HANG TO DRY

A multimedia analysis and intimate exploration:  What is the The Bra?

Inspired by my bra hanging to dry on the bedroom doorknob, I examined the form of this calming piece of lingerie, intimate and common. I wear a bra everyday. It looks so harmless and peaceful hanging there yet it is a necessary piece of my daily armour.

The Bra is ubiquitous, a universal garment. It is the quintessential over-shoulder-bolder-holder, racy-lacey, sexy, structural, sporty, funny, frumpy, confining, comfortable, necessary, optional, nursing, training, nude, floral, coloured, black, white, underwire, seamless, private, public, essentially female, always loved and hated.

• bra-art.ca

Katrina Herrndorf

• NURSING BRA
• Full Fat Milk Bags, Mesh
• 34C (9”x27”)
• Mother’s Milk, the Cow, the Nursing Bra – 2020 babies – forever labeled COVID Babies
• $500

• bra-art.ca

Katrina Herrndorf

• PRIDE
• Skittles Original, Skittles Brightside (Blue Ones), Skittles Original Packages, Mesh
• 34C (9”x27”)
• Pride celebrations this year – quiet, virtual, a rainbow hanging on a doorknob – A rainbow of hope
• $500

• bra-art.ca

Katrina Herrndorf

• COOPED UP #19
• Chicken Wire, Feathers, Corona Beer Label
• 34C (9”x27”)
• COVID confinement and the confinement of the bra
• $500

• bra-art.ca

Pam Patterson

• Cholera: Grosse-Île
• 2020
• 10’ wide X 3’ high
• Photo-manipulated print

Sites redolent with foliage or vivid with memory – historic sites, beaches or parks can be refuges for many in stressful times. But often access to these sites has been limited during “COVID-19”. How will they be re-viewed on reopening? Cholera: Grosse-Île, as panoramic diptych, made from photos taken at the Irish Memorial National Historic Site on Grosse-Île, exposes the history of the Irish cholera epidemic deaths in the 1850s, one of many traumatic events that has seeded our anxiety around COVID-19 and our future.

Lilianne Schneider

• Sky on Earth
• Photograph

She is a self-taught photographer, born and raised in Peru living in Toronto since the late 1980s.

She is influenced by the rich experimental film scene in Toronto and her various travels abroad. They have forged her sensitivity for the environment that surrounds her. She is constantly looking for photographic subjects in the streets where society and the richness of the cultural landscape converge.

Photography opens her mind to experiment and recreate the scenes that might go unnoticed to others.

• Website: www.lilisch.com

Mona Bayati

We as human globally have been exposed to a new reality . This new reality however ,it’s not something new at all. Over hundreds of years Humans overcome nature with the hope to role the world but here and there nature comes back to only show that she is not tamable and that we are part of a system that is much bigger than humans. In this confusing time, I like to go back to my ancestors, to their practice of honoring the earth , their prayers for peace and harmony and find my lost pieces of soul there. These are my stories.

Janne Reuss

• One Earth
• Overpainted Photography
• 48 x 61 cm
• 2019
• From the Series Rewriting the Story

My artwork is about transformation: White paintbrushes move through my previously constructed photo collages… covering, hiding and integrating between layers and shapes, in order to create new imaginary landscapes. With every brushstroke I’m trying to rewrite the story in order to search for the truth. In this process I’m confronted with memories and longings at the same time. In One Earth, every white dot represents light, we are all connected.

Wang Qiao

• Megalomania
• acrylic on canvas
• 30” x 40”
• 2020

As the technology development, a new life-style appears in our world, and it’s replacing our old habit. The new technologies are eroding our society, but lots of people can’t adapt the new style that technology brings to them. My works are representing the conflict between the new lifestyle and old world. People who can’t adapt new technologies are abandoned by the society. Human’s brain begins to degenerate, and they controlled by computers. I also forecast the war between human-being and artificial intelligence. The scientists spend time and money on the AI but eventually they drag human into a catastrophe.

Wang Qiao

• Collapse
• acrylic on canvas
• 18” x 24”
• 2020

As the technology development, a new life-style appears in our world, and it’s replacing our old habit. The new technologies are eroding our society, but lots of people can’t adapt the new style that technology brings to them. My works are representing the conflict between the new lifestyle and old world. People who can’t adapt new technologies are abandoned by the society. Human’s brain begins to degenerate, and they controlled by computers. I also forecast the war between human-being and artificial intelligence. The scientists spend time and money on the AI but eventually they drag human into a catastrophe.

Theresa Passarello

• Weaving Sunlight
• Oil on Canvas
• 54” x 60”
• 2020

Weaving Sunlight was painted during the pandemic and takes a hopeful perspective on our uncertain future. My painting reflects on the fragility but also the resilience of the human spirit, the importance of making meaningful connections and the need to retain a sense of wonder. The initial underpainting of text – excerpts from my personal journals – readily lose themselves in ephemerality, articulating an aesthetic space that anchors itself in increasing abstraction. Intuitively responding to my own mark-making and gesture, the space opens up and becomes a site of possibility and discovery.

Anam Ahmed

• *Spiralling*
• 12.5″ x 19″
• mixed media ink, pencil crayon and gouache on paper

*This body of work explores notions of containment, destruction, and rebirth.* *Depicted through narratives about humans in opposition to
nature and vice versa.* *There exists a friction between the edgeless natural world and the boundary-forming human development. Chaos is conveyed in a seemingly apocalyptic display of deformed cityscapes, wire fences, a train herding a forest, and the list goes on. Yet, amongst these dominating
scenarios, the natural world sits central to it all; removed and, somewhat unchanged, serving as a sign of virtue and mercy.* *Essentially, this
series shows humankind’s incongruous relationship with the planet, without missing the point that we are one and a part of it.* *At the core, nature is what we ultimately return to.*

Anam Ahmed

• *The Tooth *
• 19″ x 25″
• mixed media ink, pencil crayon and gouache on paper
• 2020

*This body of work explores notions of containment, destruction, and rebirth.* *Depicted through narratives about humans in opposition to
nature and vice versa.* *There exists a friction between the edgeless natural world and the boundary-forming human development. Chaos is conveyed in a seemingly apocalyptic display of deformed cityscapes, wire fences, a train herding a forest, and the list goes on. Yet, amongst these dominating
scenarios, the natural world sits central to it all; removed and, somewhat unchanged, serving as a sign of virtue and mercy.* *Essentially, this
series shows humankind’s incongruous relationship with the planet, without missing the point that we are one and a part of it.* *At the core, nature is what we ultimately return to.*

Sora (Maryam) Kheiry

• Repetition
• 37x27cm
• Mix Media on Cardboard

Repetition happens inside of us as humans. We are producing a repetition in our daily lives. Repeatedly. And in these repetitions we allow history to be repeated over and over again with people, ideologies, powers and great observers and thousands of blunders. Humanity and the earth get destroyed. And we will move again towards this destruction. Will this cycle be broken one day?

Jerome A McNicholl

• When it Happens
• 55 “ x 71”
• oil on canvas

My art practice is autobiographic in nature thus when I paint I am plugged into the spark and clutter of my own psychic and there I find a tunnel into a seemingly endless unconscious sea within me, wherein exists a connection to every other creature on this planet – ‘you have to go in, to go out’.

Jerome A McNicholl

•  ‘Dive/Fall into the Abyss’
• oil on canvas.

‘‘The world unfolds like a Cathedral of Ideas’ that is the cathedral of our hearts and minds; as we inch closer to our source, continuing to work – stuff is revealed.

I identify as a ‘Radical Christian’ experiencing life as ‘inner directed, continuously revealing its majesty and rich earthly beauty. The very idea of incarnation is ‘mater incarnate with the vitality of spirit’.

Zahra Tavassoli

• A new question
• A new survey question: how many times a day do you use alcohol and thermometer?

Photography has occupied her during working in architecture and urban planning field, first as a tool of reproduction to provide visual data about the buildings and cities and then it turned to her serious interest in fine-art photography as a medium for creative expression of an idea, a message, or an emotion.

Reality is a matter for her as is or it should be, as World needs a new reality by changing the previous points of view toward a new one: unity, peace and dialogue to protect earth and human; and for her photography is the way of changing.

Zahra Tavassoli

• Essential needs these days
• Except what we need to prevent covid -19 pandemic, light is essential all the time and in every periods

Photography has occupied her during working in architecture and urban planning field, first as a tool of reproduction to provide visual data about the buildings and cities and then it turned to her serious interest in fine-art photography as a medium for creative expression of an idea, a message, or an emotion.

Reality is a matter for her as is or it should be, as World needs a new reality by changing the previous points of view toward a new one: unity, peace and dialogue to protect earth and human; and for her photography is the way of changing.

Gerda Wekerle

• Seeding (Ceding) Cranes
• 24×24 inches
• Acrylic on canvas.

These paintings are part of a series on Toronto’s construction cranes. They create new geometries of triangles, lines and colour that move daily and eventually disappear altogether. Their shapes mingle with existing wires and contrast with trees and houses. I am an emerging painter who builds on years of work on cities as a critical writer, teacher and community activist. In my crane paintings, I challenge viewers to see them as new urbanscapes but also to ask questions about the power and politics that favours development at the expense of nature and livable urban spaces.

Leah Oates

• Electric #20

My ongoing series Transitory Space deals with the environment in flux and the passage of time and visual schisms between now (pre advanced climate change) and a potential future (post imminent climate change).

The blue section is similar to an x-ray or a forensic photograph prior to the misdeed of gutting the environment to act as a document and the yellow section is an image of the earth’s tainted atmosphere with smoke, pollution etc. The never ending electrical grids become our new forests and they come beautiful to humans as it’s all we know and see for miles.

These image are a beautiful visual forewarning and evidence of our potential future and act as a crucial message for now and for the future.

Ulisa Dekaj

• “What Is”
• 24″ x 35″
• Acrylic and markers on mylar
• 2020

We are part of what seems to be a very divisive and precarious landscape – while it is easy to become overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty it is important to remember to look with-in. To consider our roots, our experiences and our stories – as they unify us all. We all share the human experience and with eyes wide open to the past, present and future we are able to evolve. “What Is” is about seeing the self and the world from the place of love in one’s heart.

Jim Hake

• Mother and Child
• 2020
• 45 x 30 x 3in
• Fiberglass, Hydrocal, mixed media

Created in a time of isolation and physical distancing, this work poetically evokes the fundamental human need for touch and proximity. Inspired by renaissance iconography, this sculpture focuses on a mother’s embrace of her child and the soft and almost ethereal quality of this simple act. The liquid fluidity of the surface conjures a sense of harmony and ease that is increasingly at odds with the restrictive social norms of our times.

Dorota Dziong

• Untitled study (A2)
• 2019
• 19.5” x 15.5”
• $375 plus HST

My current interest is exploring the effects of repetition and distortion on figurative subject matter in oil painting. Tensions arise between the individual and the social when creating multiple iterations based on a single figure: the amplification and negation of personality, the passive and the confrontational. The elimination of personality results when individuals vanish in a multiplication of the figure.

• dorotadziong.com
• @dorotadziong

Dorota Dziong

• Untitled study (B1)
• 2019
• 19.5” x 15.5”
• $375 plus HST

In these two studies the imagery may seem ominous or relating to death, evoking a dark past or warning about a difficult future. The works aim at the absurd space between individual and the crowd, and don’t shy away from eccentric and absurd results. Albert Camus wrote that individuals should embrace the absurd condition of human existence while also defiantly continuing to explore and search for meaning. Much time has passed, but the absurdist search for meaning is still relevant. 

• dorotadziong.com
• @dorotadziong

Vian Ewart

• Hope
• 36” x 60”
• Acrylic on Canvas
• $1,200 

I’m an optimist. My paintings have previously been be a bold, colourful affirmation of life and its beauty. But our world is changing — from disease, climate change, demagoguery, war, and the manipulation of technology. My recent art has been reflecting the negative side of civilization and how we’re slowly strangling our world and its freedoms.Yet, as an optimist my paintings must include rays of hope. There must always be hope.