City of Dreams – January 20 – 31

City of Dreams Jan. 20-31 2021 ( online only )

This is a group exhibition of works curated online as artists explore their urban environment and share with us the influences of our city on us. During the pandemic we have restrictions but our cities continue to grow and develop and we become even more aware of the structures around us as we take long walks exploring our neighborhoods. At night we dream of getting our cities back to some kind of normal where we can dine, go to theatre and have dinner with friends. Some local businesses have become casualties of the pandemic closing never to return. This group exhibit curated by Phil Anderson, Director @ Gallery 1313 explores an eclectic range of art and diverse interpretations of our urban experience.

Participating artists include Farzaneh Moallef, Courtney McKay Fairweather, Gerda R. Wekerle, Mikael Sandblom, William Tyler, Catharine Mary Somerville, Anne Winter, Leena Raudvee, Linda Briskin, Eliza Moore, Atia Pokorny, Kelly O Neil, Julie Robb, Joseph Kennel, Anupa Perera, Ravi Persaud, Natalia Tcherniak, Joanne Shenfeld, Kye Marshall, Robert Anderson , Patrick Streiber, Elizabeth Greisman, Jordyn Taylor, Vanessa Shah and others.

Joanne Shenfeld’s work came to the attention of the Toronto Star via this show! Congratulations Joanne!

The show was also reviewed in Toronto.com

Gallery 1313 continues to support emerging artists and exhibit contemporary art works. We thank all patrons and visitors for their continued support and look forward to the day when we can welcome you back in the gallery.

Courtney Fairweather

Tree Town: Ruled by a Benevolent Squirrel
20 x 16 (matted & framed)
14×11 (unframed)
digital print

Fairweather is a mixed media artist and photographer. During 2020, she has come to realize that her neighbourhood is a hub of activity. While people shelter indoors, the tree beside her balcony is home to all kinds of life. Pigeons and blue jays, cardinals and woodpeckers, flit through the branches of the giant Ash, whose limbs also provide resting places for squirrels and raccoons. It’s a very busy place, a small town nestled in the midst of human habitation.

Instagram: cfairweatherx

Gerda Wekerle

Whose Growth
36 x 36
$1,500

My dreams of the city are triggered by contrasts: massive multi-storey pre-1960s Manhattan buildings topped by squat vernacular watertowers of iron and wood shingles; Toronto’s future steel and glass mega-towers topped by spindly ironworks for giants’ play- construction cranes. In each city, these glimpses of skylines make me ask questions about past visions of the city versus the present and future; the water towers conjure images of the domestic and vernacular contrasted with the density of the growing city. Construction cranes create a transient skyline of iron and steel directed by a lone worker in a small cab as the mega-structure rises into the sky. During the industrial revolution, artwork often celebrated the vibrant industrial city, its street life, and new technologies such as street cars and train stations. In the thirties and to the present, a theme was the city as the backdrop for depictions of poverty, despair and decay.

Gerda Wekerle

Iron Sky
11 x 16
Acrylic
$300

As an urbanist, I’m drawn to the roofs and skylines of cities. In New York, the contrast between the massive multi-storey buildings topped by flimsy water towers intrigues me. Despite the glamour of the city, residents are still dependent on the essential lifeline of water. In Toronto, I am aware on a daily basis of the growth of the city as new buildings under construction may tower as high as a hundred stories, dwarfing neighbourhood trees and three-storey family residences. My recent paintings have focused on technologies of building- their shapes, colours and negative spaces. The tall buildings are made possible by new building technologies of iron and steel, colourful construction cranes and pile drivers, designed and marketed by global corporations to reshape the city. They migrate to where capital fuels growth. Looking up at the rooftops and skyline, raises new questions: whose city is this? how does the gigantic relate to the domestic and natural? how do city residents respond to the ephemeral and transient landscapes created by the new construction technologies? Do they generate dreams?

Catharine Somerville

Dreaming in Colours
2014
Oil on canvas
12″ x24”
$850.00

The city is of colours. The seasons excite the city with different festivals. City traffic lights , stop, go and orange like purgatory. Everything is moving even when sleeping even in Covid-19

William Tyler

Clinton & Franklin
31×31
Acrylic paint , Oil sticks ,Pencil ,Charcoal , Red clay pencil ,Crayon ,Colored pencil ,Wheat pastes and collage
2020
$1,000

William Tyler

Neighborhood Watch
24×36
Acrylic , Oil Stick , Pencil , Collage & Wheat Paste on Stretched Canvas
2020
$2,500

Mikael Sandblom

Cloud Patterns IV
Digital Composite
2020

When you glance at the sky, the clouds appear still. Look again, they’ve completely changed. The same is true of the city. Brick, concrete, steel and stone: they all look permanent, solid and reliable. But give it some time. Everything will change.

Mikael Sandblom

Cloud Patterns III
Digital Composite
2020

In my imagination I see great landscapes and structures in the clouds!

Connection Earth Collaborative (Farzaneh Moallef)

The Carousel
Digital Photo
2732 by 1820 pixels
Aug 2019

A year ago, almost overnight, around the globe a virus changed the course of what humanity had come to perceive as normal. Here in Toronto, we were not exempt from that. The photos presented here taken over 2019 and 2020 aim to represent the joyous spirit of a city but also perseverance and resilience of the human spirit in the face of a disastrous calamity and hope for a better tomorrow.

Connection Earth Collaborative (Farzaneh Moallef)

Toronto Nights
Digital Photo
5040 by 3360 pixels
2019

Ravi Brian

THE CITY (IN 3D)
Photo
16″ x 24″
$350

The overload of construction in the city has people seeing double.

Ravi Brian

GETTING MY STEPS IN
Photo
16″ x 24″
$350

Who needs an elevator when you have instant transportation right outside your window?

Joanne Shenfeld

Rolling Hill
10″ x 10″

These abstract works interpret the urban landscape. They are done with mixed media, using collage, paint, drawing and acrylic mediums. The shapes, forms and color evoke the jumble of industrial and natural structures that make up the city skylines.

Website: https://joanneshenfeld.weebly.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanne_shenfeld/

Joanne Shenfeld

Gridpeaks III
5″ x 5″

Website: https://joanneshenfeld.weebly.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanne_shenfeld/

Anne Winter

Sleepless in Scarborough: The Fog
24″ x 24″
mixed media
$1,300

Claire hadn’t been feeling well recently. Not bad really, but jittery and kind of unsettled. And her chronic insomnia wasn’t helping the matter either. She’d also recently been diagnosed with Distracted Eye Condition which hadn’t come as a surprise…. (for the full story pls. see https://www.annewinter.ca/sleepless-the-fog)

Anne Winter is a self-described urbanist with a particular interest in how the design of cities impacts the day to day life of its residents. Her art is often accompanied by stories she has written for the fictional journal The Urban Observer.

Anne Winter

Living in the Shadow of Inheritance
15″ x 18″
mixed media
$1,700

“My garden is dying”, beseeched Muriel Moore as I walked up the driveway of her tidy bungalow in Scarborough to meet her. She had reached out to The Urban Observer after repeated calls to her city councillor went unanswered. “Isn’t there anything that can be done”? (for the full story pls. see https://www.annewinter.ca/pet-peeve-1)

www.annewinter.ca

Natalian Tcherniak

Paisley Silver Eye
Ink and mixed media on canvas
30” x 40”
2014
NFS

We are not alone; we are not in a vacuum. We exist in a network of relationships, visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious. We connect directly and indirectly to other people, things, concepts, events, places, and everything around us. Overarching theme in my work is a search for orientation with these connections. I am interested in conceptual, site-specific and alternative ways of depicting history, perception, and communication that would enable multiple readings of the work. Tracing, erasing, and redrawing connections between places and people is a way of searching for new emergent patterns that have been created out of complexity of interactions.

Natalia Tcherniak

Mushrooms
Ink on canvas
3′ x 4′
2014-2015
$600

I seek inspiration in the built environment, abandoned, and incidental spaces, systems of orientation, and an ongoing process of self-discovery. I map new paths of intersection between architecture and psyche as I explore my own psychological construction assembly and the dystopian environment I call home.

Leena Raudvee

Sweeping
performance
photograph
2020
photos by Clement Kent

Our city is being consumed by unchecked condo development and gentrification. Affordable housing is disappearing, forcing people into precarious encampments on public lands.

Leena Raudvee

Sweeping
performance
photograph
2020
photos by Clement Kent

In “Sweeping” I performed a meditation on homelessness and a caring for the public space which, during this pandemic, has become home for so many who are homeless.

Atia Pokorny

Space Revisited
archival inkjet print
20″ x 13″
1 of edition of 5
$ 400 unframed

This work resulted from my multiple visits to a construction site on the corner of Richmond West and Peter streets over a period of one and half years. There, several historic industrial buildings were being connected by a daring steel and glass structure.

Atia Pokorny

Escher’s House
archival inkjet print
13″ x 20″
1 of edition of 5
$750 framed

Over time, the empty space around the huge supports filled up with scaffolding, evocative of M.C. Escher’s labyrinthine art. The work documents how I witnessed this space as a both physical and spiritual experience.

Joseph Kennel

High Park
11×14
Silver Halide Print

With the emergence of Covid-19 we have experienced a changed relationship to space, where urban green spaces have become an increasingly important social and mental health resource in Toronto. Yet the indigenous histories and ecological importance of these spaces are largely overlooked and taken for granted.

Instagram Handle: Josephkennel

Joseph Kennel

High Park
11×14
Silver Halide Print

These images were produced in High Park to visualize how preserved ecologies meld with
human architecture to produce new geographies that sustain layers of history and environment while outlining the importance of nature in
continued urbanization.

Instagram Handle: Josephkennel

Eliza Moore

Waiting for Pink Umbrella
24” by 60”
archival digital print mounted on dibond
$400

The world is changing, Toronto is changing. I have always been fascinated by the changing urban landscape, but horrified at the same time by too much density and not enough sensitive design. Since 2015, I have been documenting the changes in many parts of Toronto, but particularly along the eastern central waterfront near where I live. Three or four times a year I walk the street, capturing an image every 30 paces, and then I construct layered panoramas of the changing landscape. For this exhibition, I’m showing two examples of different stages of the construction of 130 Queens Quay East, the Daniels Launchpad.

Eliza Moore

The End of Guvernment
14” by 60”
archival digital print mounted on dibond
$300

The new building is beautiful, and many people will work in it. But two huge residential towers are now built just behind it. Is the density too much? Are the buildings too ugly? Is there enough open space? My work asks the questions, the viewer provides the answers.

Kelly O’Neill

Canadian Landscape
editioned Screen print
30x 22” unframed

Cityscapes and architecture play a significant role in the development of our identity – individually, as collective members of a city, and nationally. These impressive structures that become the emblems of our cities create back alleys where lives the detritus these structures generate. It is here that I find real interest, these places that show the grit of life and represent a truth not displayed in shiny exteriors and dramatic fronts.

Julie Robb

For the Moon Never Beams without Bringing Me Dreams (2)
Acrylic on canvas
46″ x 46″
$18,000

Instagram: julierobb_artist

Twitter: Julie Robb@SpatiallyWired

Facebook: Julie Robb, Artist

Julie Robb

For the Moon Never Beams without Bringing Me Dreams (2)
Detail View
Acrylic on canvas
46″ x 46″
$18,000

Instagram: julierobb_artist

Twitter: Julie Robb@SpatiallyWired

Facebook: Julie Robb, Artist

Linda Briskin

Pony Express
Archival Pigment Print
25″w x 14″h (unframed)
$145

Pony Express offers the momentary juxtaposition of the postal truck and the horses on the Kay Gardiner Beltline Park.

www.lindabriskinphotography.com

Linda Briskin

Sheltering (i)
Archival Pigment Print
25″w x 16″h (unframed)
$145

These photographs are from a larger project on Textures of the City. Each photograph captures images that may last only a breath, offer unexpected juxtapositions and reveal the layered textures present and imminent in the everyday. This project challenges us to notice such textures, and highlights the ambiguities in what we (choose to) see.

www.lindabriskinphotography.com

Anupa Khemadasa

The Space Between Us

Architecture and urban planning are often ideal in theory but detached from the subjective experience of everyday life. People are the heart of their communities. ‘The space between Us’ speaks to the spatial and temporal contradictions between the city as a spectacle and the city as a ‘home’.

Website : www. AnupaKhemadasa.wordpress.com
Instagram: @anupa_khemadasa

Robert Anderson, BFA, MA

The Face of Luxury Deconstructs
photographic collage
C-print
40” x 28”
2020

The original full colour advertisement features a giant face of a beautiful woman, typical of a glamour magazine, as the image representing “LUXURY CONDOS/ WITHOUT COMPROMISE.”

After a year, workman had removed the original advertisement and the giant hoarding boards were painted black, or so I believed. As time and adverse weather would reveal, thin sheet metal, painted black, had been placed over the boards and some of the original image remained, mostly of the advertising text. Oddly enough, under the original colour image of the beautiful woman, was another reproduction of a woman, slightly varied, but entirely in black and white.

In time, this image too began to fall apart, revealing wooden boards starting to breakdown and collapse. As these changes continued, unaided by human hands, the idealization of ‘luxury’ and ‘beauty’ began to ‘deconstruct’ itself, in a literal sense, and within an ideological context.

Instagram: robertanderson448

Patrick Strieber

Blue
$120

Big-box retailers have become the dominant architectural definition of commercial districts in young and growing cities across Canada. The huge, purpose built retail warehouses use colour, pattern and texture to express brand into the very place these buildings occupy, while the strong horizontals and rigid angular shapes reinforce isolation from nature and the artificial environment of the space.

website: patrickstieber.com

Patrick Strieber

Blue
$120

Retail Landscape is a photographic exploration of these spaces – how they relate to our concepts of place and our connection to the natural world.

website: patrickstieber.com

Jordyn Taylor

Beneath the Stains of Time
mixed media
8″ x 10″

They say when you feel provoked, instead of lashing out, get up and leave but what if the place that is so maddening is the city you live in and moving would be like moving mountains. So you stay. Still. Watching. Waiting. Witnessing the changing landscape. Fields where you use to get high are now drug stores where you pick up your antidepressants. No evidence that any greenery existed, just decaying photographs and your loose skin.

Instagram: hjordyntaylor

Elizabeth Greisman

The photo and art pieces allow the viewer to experience the point of convergence linked with transformative motion of change. Constant change and metamorphosis are the hallmark of the urban setting.

Elizabeth Greisman

In this case I have used the beauty of Venice, juxtaposed with a road in Southern Ontario, to emphasize the history of historic cities, the encroachment of Toronto on our rural setting and necessity of creating a sustainable food source in an urban setting- the market.