Hi Libido – The Sex Show – February 3 – March ~

Show Dates: Feb. 3^rd – March 2021

This annual exhibition is just online this year as the pandemic continues to change the way we do things. Dating, hook-ups and maintaining longer-term relationships have all taken a hit with the current pandemic continuing for over ten months.

This exhibit has been done through a call for submissions yearly and so is determined by the works submitted. This has included a variety of media including performance art as well as photography, video, painting, drawing and much more. There are a variety of different takes on this subject matter from sexual politics, to humorous works, scientific works, bondage and just about everything.

As Valentines day approaches people find themselves sometimes celebrating alone or at least to a reduced social distancing setting.

Couples are sometimes stressed as they have few other social interactions and sometimes a relationship is put to a test… not always with successful results.

Hopefully the Hi Libido The Sex Show will give people cause to smile or perhaps a chuckle. Maybe to remember a time when times were different.

Submissions were received from Chicago, Montreal, Edinburgh, Scotland and Cuba as well as Toronto and Ontario.

Artists include Ruth Hartman, Lee McCarthy, Naomi Brenneck (Chicago), Blaine White, Darcia LaBrosse (Montreal), Art Cotrin, Shawn Postoff, Kristen Stephen, Courtney Fairweather, Emma Lewis, Diana Rosa, E Alba, Elham Hammat (Edingburgh Scotland), Trint Thomas (Vancouver), Philip Hare (Nova Scotia), Philippa Hajdu (Orillia) Craig Mahood, Kasia Latos, Tracy Browner (Arizona, USA) and Nora House.

The exhibition is curated by Gallery Director, Phil Anderson and will have 20 + artists works. Media Call 647-918-6606

Gallery 1313 is an artist run centre and incorporated not for profit organization that supports emerging artists and exhibits contemporary art with a 24 year history. STAY SAFE AND HEALTHY

Blaine A. White

‘Body Rhythms’
30″ x 24″
oil on canvas
$500

https://www.instagram.com/blaineawhite/

Courtney Fairweather

‘Heavy Weapon’
14″ x 11″
Digital Print
$100.00

Ancient tortoises in Zanzibar move slowly but with great determination. A male lumbers onto the back of a female and grunts as he tries to find her vagina. Meanwhile, the impassive female, trapped by his tremendous weight, waits for her chance to escape.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfairweatherx/

Courtney Fairweather

‘SQUIRRELY ‘
14″ x 11″
Digital Print
$100.00

This grey and tan temptress chattered loudly, commanding her shy suitor to satisfy her needs. The fur flies as these two get real close and intimate.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfairweatherx/

Lee McCarthy

‘Lovers’
Acrylic on Canvas

I frequently visit Riverwood Conservatory in, Mississuaga. I love the flowers there. Currently I have a series of acrylic paintings , titled Lovers. I am very interested in the mysteries that exist between lovers, and I try to capture it in this series.

Website: https://www.leemccarthystudio.com

Shawn Postoff

‘Statistical Information’
18″w x 24″h
Mixed media mosaic assemblage
2017
$1,500

Statistical analysis appears to be useful for even the most ephemeral moments. This piece is an expression of my utter relief at the confirmation that I was, in my youth, a perfectly normal kid.

Website: www.shawnpostoff.com

Shawn Postoff

‘Statistical Information’
Detail View
Mixed media mosaic assemblage
2017
$1,500

Statistical analysis appears to be useful for even the most ephemeral moments. This piece is an expression of my utter relief at the confirmation that I was, in my youth, a perfectly normal kid.

Website: www.shawnpostoff.com

Darcia Labrosse

‘watercolor #34’
4″ x 7″
watercolour
2020

Labrosse has developed a unique technique where Fine Arts and the industrial world merge. Overcoming the gravity of representation and the figurative, automatism and acquired reflexes, she mixes brute force and translucid emotions to paint an ontological, disquieting, enigmatic human figure free from artifice, universal in its expression.

Website: www.labrosseart.com

Darcia Labrosse

‘watercolor #39’
4″ x 7″
watercolour
2020

She paints embodiments of the human condition. Moving through opalescence and a sometime monochromatic palette, the work is evocative, seminal and suggestive of a pre-incarnation, a transcendence evolving in an underlying objective space where our senses are fired into a leap of perception.

Website: www.labrosseart.com

Philippa Hajdu

Hajdu has explored numerous subjects and in a variety of media be that collage, painting, photo transfer, silkscreen ort extiles. Yet from the outset of her career the figure has been a central and recurring motif, even when ostensibly executing a landscape or moving towards abstraction. The human figure has certainly dominated a recent series of works executed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hajdu had her first experience of working with a live model remotely, via zoom, an interesting dynamic that mixes intimacy and distance.

Emmette Lewis

‘Naked’

Do you want to see me naked?

Do you want to feel me? Naked.

Do your intentions taunt your mind; playing over the different ways you crave the warm caress

of my skin?

You act as a consumer perceiving my body as a market, examining the flesh like a victimless

crime; thoughts bouncing.

Let me breath out cool air onto a burning body. Let me thrive.

Touch.

Slow down as I stand undressing each carefully crafted layer I built around myself in order to

camouflage my colours and paint an image made up of fabric and string.

I look to you more than anything to see if you’d take notice to who I am.

But without windows to open up your eyes and see past the lace all you’ll see is skin.

Nude but I am still not exposed.

Have those desires overwhelmed your humanity?

When did a person become a body before they became a mind?

I’ll let you in on a secret. I am still a daughter, I am still a cousin, I am still a sister.

Friction feeds ignorance that heats the consuming fires which blaze up into a whirlwind of

smoke. Bodies dancing then falling like ash.

Sensations run, your mind a haze. What will happen when you finally hear my voice?

But I’m no fire. I do not ignite like that.

I am earth. Natural in form.

Naked. Not the nudity of skin and bone but the nudity of self and soul. The nudity I’d let you

know if there wasn’t such blinded perception over genuine human connection.

Truly naked is me showing my vulnerability that lies underneath my darkest fears.

My protected emotions guarded by walls that’ll drop like curtains and expose a stage crafted

of everything that I am and that I ever will be.

I embrace it. Naked as book that can be read from page to page. I am open to be interpreted.

Turn each word into a story. Keep warm wrapped in my tales that tell of adolescence and self

essence.

Take a moment to read the cover of my soul and find yourself lost in the truth of my core.

If all you see when I am naked is skin then look a little deeper, observe a while longer.

I’ll stand proudly exposed for you. Arms open for hours praying you’ll take this chance to listen

to how my mumbles aren’t just stutters in a dark room. They are opinions that’ve bloomed.

If you realize this would your hands no longer scorch hot flames but turn into a sea of emotions

that embrace me like a wave?

Hand in hand with the spirit that lives in this body.

For here I am. In front of you. Naked.

Ruth Hartman

‘Libido LLC’
12″ x 12″ canvas
Acrylic/Mixed Media

XY financial and sexual power assumptions without liability.

Website: https://www.ruthhartman.ca/
Facebook: facebook.com/ruthhartman.ca

Art Cotrim

‘come from the land of ice and snow’
32″ x 48″
mixed media on hand stretched canvas

I like the use of color and texture, geometric shapes, lines and curves to try and capture a loose and free approach to my work. I’m very much influenced by early post French impressionism, the fauves and their use of color. I am a student of the modernists and their rebellious approach to their work. The bohemian lifestyle and the many artists of these movements and their world and work continue to inspire me.

website artcimpressions.com
instagram @acotrim

E Alba

‘The Toy’
30″ x 40″
Oil and acrylic on canvas
$4,000

After many years working in photography I started to feel that I wanted to have more freedom to show or to express ideas that were deep hidden inside my brain or we might say my subconscious.

website https://www.ealba.xyz/
instagram e.a.l.b.a

E Alba

‘Mirage’
36″ x 48″
Oil and acrylic on canvas
$4,000

A few years ago I started to learn how to paint on canvas, in the same way I learned photography, by teaching myself using any kind of source.

Here are my paintings. It is I, it is as if I were looking at you from a window, each painting is a window into something or out of something.

I was born in Havana, Cuba. I live and work in Canada. I am a self-taught artist.

website https://www.ealba.xyz/
instagram e.a.l.b.a

Elham Hemmat

‘Flower 3’
Mixed Media
45 x 10 x 10
2020

This work has been inspired by Old Stone Age patterns and information in literature. Through the sculptural representations, men and women sexual organs have been simplified to rectangular and cylindrical forms.

Unique mixed media paintings were created to represent these ideas through modern human minds.

website: https://elhamhemmat.co.uk/
instagram elham_hemmmat

Elham Hemmat

Mixed Media
20 x 20
2020

Unique mixed media paintings were created to represent these ideas through modern human minds.

website: https://elhamhemmat.co.uk/
instagram elham_hemmmat

Naomi Brenneck

‘Stuffed Handcuffs’

My work is driven by the intersections between who I am, my perceptions, and my interests. This often comes out as a contradiction between experimentation and domestic imagery or objects. Sexual education/positivity, LGBTQ+ rights, and mental health are issues that I care about deeply, have researched thoroughly, and try to bring to the public’s attention. I use my art to normalize things in the world that I don’t think people are willing enough to face head-on and talk about. I use humor and exaggeration in many of my pieces to soften the sometimes jarring concept and make it an enjoyable object to look at.

Naomi Brenneck

‘Sex Toy Belt’

I begin with drawings to express my ideas about these topics and use sculpture to make them come to life. I experiment with an array of mediums but metal sculpture has been the heart of my practice for the past 2 years. I am currently working as a studio monitor in a foundry which has allowed me to move into casting with bronze and aluminum. I also use plaster, found objects, and soft sculpture materials. My work utilizes everyday objects that I either manipulated or recreated using materials that counteract social understandings of the original form. I distort things that are familiar and recognizable and with that attack a perception about the formerly everyday object. My contradictory use of materials is to send a message about the many meanings behind an object that may not be obvious at first glance.

Diana Rosa

‘Closer’
48″ x 30″
Acrylic on Canvas

In a stylistic amalgam of Pop and folk, abstract and figurative, Diana Rosa takes inspirations from an alternative upbringing where she closely connected with the natural landscape around her. Born and raised in Cuba shaped her perspective on nature and how humans interact with land, animals and each other. She employed a Naïve Folk-Art style to explore questions of identity, love, relationship and environment in our society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. She makes personal women’s experiences serious subjects for art, but because of their intense emotional content, her paintings transcend boundaries by their powerful and intimate narratives. Greatly influenced by modern masters from Cezanne, Henri Matisse to Frida Kahlo

Diana Rosa

‘Fruit Connection’
32″ x 32″
Acrylic on Canvas

I appreciate the human form and the emotions within, so I explore acrylic mediums to convey the limitless individuality the human form embodies. I think of my drawings as portraits of a soul, not an actual person–pulling from the universal level instead of our clouded worldly view. They are more than their surface, much like us. They are my perspective and appreciation of who I am and what I know: a woman who embraces adaptation in a virtual world.

Kristen Stephen

‘Come Over’
Black and White Photograph
8″ x 10″
$100

Lusting after someone can intensify the sexual experience. The thoughts of sexual possibilities can seem endless when combined with lust. The imagination can create a scenario that sex is defined in the infinite. It can become overwhelming in its need to be satisfied. I created snapshots of shadows of the female body as to where the viewer can lust after the possible scenarios.

Kristen Stephen

‘What can you do to me?’
Black and White Photograph
8″ x 10″
$100

Trint Thomas

‘Aquifoliaceae and Sakura’
Silver Gelatin Print
8″ x 10″
$250 Unframed

Sold as a digital reproduction. The original pieces are self developed 35mm negatives and print with Cherry blossoms and Holly laid on top to create the pictograms in the negative space.

Website: https://trintthomasphoto.wixsite.com/trintthomasphoto

Trint Thomas

‘A Look in the Mirror’
Unaltered Digital Photograph
8″ x 10″
$200 Unframed

Website: https://trintthomasphoto.wixsite.com/trintthomasphoto

Kasia Latos

‘Like That’
dried succulent plant, nail polish, foam beads
15″ x 12″
$650

“Like That” throws us into a ball pit to remind us of the playful side of sex and sexuality.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kasialatos_art/

Kasia Latos

‘Like That’
dried succulent plant, nail polish, foam beads
15″ x 12″
$650

I am a self-taught mixed media artist who works with an array of materials ranging from fibre to concrete, wood and repurposed items. I approach my creative process as an ongoing conversation with the unconscious. This leads me to experiment with that elusive sense of intuition. Although straightforward on the surface, my works sometimes get tangled in complexity. Enjoy the untangling!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kasialatos_art/

Craig Mahood

‘Functional Bathroom Erotica’

This work is a fiberglass sculpture that is built around and connected to a functional ceramic urinal. I have always enjoyed taking mundane functional objects that are easily taken for granted and giving them a new life.

Philip Hare

Glory Hole I (2021)
10” X 12”
Mixed media
N.F.S.

Let us get down on our knees and give thanks for the lowly glory hole.

Philip Hare

Glory Hole II (2021)
10” X 12”
Mixed media
N.F.S.

In July, 2020, the British Columbia CDC recommended the use of glory holes as a way of reducing COVID transmission during the pandemic. (“Try ‘glory holes’ for safer sex during coronavirus, B.C. CDC says” Global News, July 22, 2020)

Now that’s advice that’s not hard to swallow.

Tracy Browner

‘Released’
36 x 36
$7,500.00
mixed media on wood panel

Artmaking on a regular basis, studio style, is a fairly new phenomenon for me. My everyday life for about the past 20 years, has been all about decorative finishes for the home interior industry. The pandemic has presented a silver lining, in that I am able to work in my home studio when I’m not working on walls. Zoom figure painting sessions, both group and one on one for specific pieces of art, have served to create this body of work based on sexuality. My female figures naturally embody the excitement that I feel toward women. Also, with the digital age creating a pornographic reputation toward sexuality and the naked body, I aspire to bring honesty, beauty, fantasy, intrigue and other myriad of energies and timeless themes that involve sexuality and the female figure, into my art.

https://www.thedownlw.com/
Instagram: thedownlw/

Tracy Browner

‘Olympia’
12 x 16 x 1.5
$1,000.00
mixed media on wood panel

As for my process, the imported Italian lime plasters that I use on walls have me hooked. The feeling I get when I install a finish on a wall is like no other. There are many different types of lime plasters, each designed for specific effects on walls. To me, lime plaster itself is terribly interesting; it begins its journey from nature to walls as limestone, which is cooked in furnaces (stoked with hay), loses half its mass, then made in to putty by adding water. Marble dust and various other ingredients are added before packaging in buckets. Colorants are then added to your liking, then troweled on, to create a finish. After the finished work has cured for approximately one month, the product undergoes a chemical change that turns it back to stone. So, from stone, to putty, back to stone again, as a very thin veneer on walls or wood canvas, in my case here. As I’ve worked on various home interior projects with many different types of lime finishes, it’s been a natural choice for their inclusion in my art. I tint the putty before troweling it on to properly prepared wood canvases, use various tools to create textures, and then finally use tinted waxes and glazes to pop textures and add color variation. I’m also employing several other mixed media styles that I’ve developed over the years. Figure painting in oils has been a decades-long desire of mine, and the pandemic has created the opportunity to marry the worlds of all of my interests and desires in my art. I do hope you enjoy reviewing my entries.

https://www.thedownlw.com/
Instagram: thedownlw/

Nora House

‘Chilling Naked’
8 1/2 x 11″
Mixed media on paper
$125

An approach to the exploration of sexuality can be seen as an opportunity to explore our psyche, with curiosity and playfulness. There’s a side that happens in public – the choices we make through movement, tone of voice, clothing, grooming, to exude our confidence and enjoy the rush of attention or gaze. And there’s a private side – observing and admiring our bodies in the mirror, the shapes it can make, the details of our folds, our bone structure, our skin, and the different ‘yous’ that exist within you. One of those ‘yous’ being a sexual ‘you’, an animal ‘you’.