“I remember shopping here as a child. I remember the cheesy commercials and the corny Christmas jingles. And now I’ll never forget the song she sang and the dance we danced on this day.” – jerm IX

Peterborough-based artist jerm IX , describes himself as a street artist, lyricist, poet, photographer and urban explorer. The photographs featured in this exhibition were originally posted on his blog series entitled Abandonment Issues—where he documents his urban explorations through photography and poetry. Urban explorers is a term used to describe an online community who explores abandoned buildings and inaccessible areas. On urbanexplorers.net, the movement is described as: “The pure enjoyment of exploring places that most people won’t go. The experience of maneuvering mazes and obstacles of days gone by. The adrenaline rush of the unexpected.” As both an urban explorer and street/graffiti artist, jerm IX treads carefully in the middle. These two identities are not compatible or related, as urban explorers are not interested in tagging their locations. He says he feels a personal connection with the locations he chooses—a part of their history—and writes about the experience of the place as almost a living, breathing entity. His blog postings don’t just consist of photographs documenting his experiences, but also written word about his interaction with the place.

In this case, jerm IX explores the vacant building that was once home to the supermarket chain Knob Hill Farms, which operated at the Front Street and First Avenue Oshawa location from 1983-2001. The original sections of the building date back to 1872, when it was the Ontario Malleable Iron Company, an iron foundry that was in operation until 1977. The foundry was established by brothers John and William Cowan, and employed anywhere from 350-800 people a year. Not only does jerm IX explore the modern additions built for Knob Hill, but the interior of the original iron foundry. The exhibition begins with a selection of Thomas Bouckley Collection images to give historical context to jerm IX ’s photographs, but the focus is on a rare glimpse of the interior of this large, vacant, structure. jerm IX ’s romantic interaction and the resulting photographs are an homage to the history this building holds for the community.

Internationally renowned artist and author Douglas Coupland was approached in the spring of 2010 to produce a sculpture for the exterior of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery. His personal relationship with Arthur Erickson, the architect of the 1987 gallery expansion, and his ongoing interest in mid-century modernism, made the proposal particularly appealing to Coupland.

The RMG supplied Coupland with images and history of the RMG, particularly related to its mandate to collect and exhibit the work of Ontario’s first abstract painting collective, Painters Eleven (1953-1960).

Coupland explains the ideas behind his sculpture, Group Portrait, 1957, and its contemporary recontexualization of P11:

For The Robert McLaughlin Gallery I propose a work that reflects the Gallery’s curatorial mandate to transmit forward to future generations the work and ideas of its collection, specifically the work of Painters Eleven. To do this I’ve taken the seminal portrait of the group, Peter Croydon’s 1957 group portrait, and have used it as a framework on which to place abstract forms that represent each member. These forms and their colours are derived from a key piece of each of the eleven members’ works in the Gallery’s collection.  The forms are circular containing concentric rings which are then placed above a painted white metal framework so that in symphony, all eleven forms become “transmitters.”

The approximately 27′ x 11′ (8.1 x 3.3m) relief sculpture entitled Group Portrait 1957 was permanently installed on the north/west facade of the RMG in September 2011.

The paintings in this exhibition by the Painters Eleven reference to the specific works that Coupland referred to when creating Group Portrait, 1957.

Watch Douglas Coupland’s lecture at the RMG on September 24, 2011.

During her residency, Sally Thurlow will be working on a series of sculptures and paintings exploring subconscious themes on major change, dislocation, and relocation which have personal meaning and may also relate to the universal, continuing, and recurring theme that refugees are always on the move. However, this project is only just getting underway, so it is open to huge change…

In an earlier Reclamation sculptural series she stated “Memory is embedded, the process of ageing ennobles. From being tossed away or lost, then washed up, then recovered and restored to dignity and purpose, these driftwood forms represent a deeply human longing for reclamation. Like us, they are simply travellers through time, looking for meaning. How have we come here? How do we react to our environment?” Her attention now is more toward envisioning forms that speak of intense emotional states – making visible the invisible, allowing for new possibilities. She has moved from placing her figures to blend into the environment to making them stand out. Consequently, Thurlow started working with paints, stains, and manufactured additions to her figures. Here she will be working on the second sculpture of a trio.

As a member of the IRIS Group, Thurlow’s residency in the ArtLab is completed in conjunction with the Gallery A exhibition IRIS at 20.

Artist Biography:

Sally Thurlow is a multidisciplinary artist based in Greater Toronto. For some years she has been exploring the dynamic range of figurative forms using driftwood, within a wide range of other media. The questioning of our cultural and environmental practices is a constant focus of her work. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Toronto, with courses in Cultural and Environmental Studies at Trent University and significant earlier studies at OCA. She has given numerous artist talks and workshops at educational institutions and public galleries.

Her work has been shown internationally and she has been the recipient of various Ontario Arts Council awards. She is a member of the IRIS Group and the Red Head Gallery artists’ collectives. Her work is held in private collections across Canada, and at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario. For more information please visit www.sallythurlow.com

This photo-based work plays up nostalgic memories of the small shops that dot the downtown cores of cities.  Many such shops, dedicated to chance, antiques, toys, comics and collectables, have come and gone along the Simcoe Street corridor of the years.

These miniatures usually act as props in Tremeer’s painting practice. Painting from miniature props entertains the scrutiny of spaces, both real and fantastic. By staging this view with dollhouse miniatures, Playmobil and other toys, he has melded nostalgia for youth with imagined spaces. This project provided Tremeer with the opportunity to explore macro photography and Photoshop. Both skills are important tools in his studio practice, but have not previously been the basis for a finished work.

During the Spring of 2016, the RMG, in collaboration with CORE21, held an open call for proposals of art, illustration, design or photography for the Window Space at CORE21 in Downtown Oshawa. Tremeer’s submission was selected to be output in vinyl and applied to the window for display during the fall of 2016.

Artist Statement:

“As a kid I liked history and its stories.  I had a train set and built model kits.  Ultimately the train outgrew its table, wrapped itself around the room and was overrun by Hot Wheels cars and small soldiers.  Today I continue to think about model building―albeit dioramas associated with museums, train sets, dollhouses and pop-up books.”  (excerpt: Artist Statement).

Todd Tremeer is a painter and printmaker living in Bowmanville. He is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and completed his MFA at Western University. His paintings of miniature war dioramas, model train landscapes and dollhouse interiors have been exhibited across Canada and in the United States. He has been awarded two Canada Council grants and several Ontario Arts Council grants for his work. Most notably in 2007, the Joseph Plaskett Award for painting. For more information visit www.toddtremeer.com

 

Art Lab: July 13 – September 6

Gallery A: July 27 – September 6

Reception: RMG Fridays, August 5, 7-10pm

Artist Talk: August 7, 1-2pm

Oshawa is transitioning away from heavy manufacturing towards service-based enterprises, prompted by growth in the education sector and improvements to the transit infrastructure, and accompanied by residential development in the north and infill construction of condominiums and warehouses downtown. One of the reasons why I now live and work here is because Oshawa has a story to tell. It is a world-renowned city although it doesn’t care to brag about it. Coming across remnants and signs of the “Second Industrial Revolution” is one of my favourite ways to discover this city.

So what are the signs which symbolize Oshawa’s present transition? Is it the bright orange traffic barrels which line-up along Simcoe Street as it crosses over the 407 extension? Is it exemplified by the 1806 square feet of hatched safety zones painted on the parking lot at the recently expanded GO station? Does the increased proliferation of safety zones mean that the city is safer or riskier for pedestrians? Does it denote increased accessibility? Does it signify a surplus of commercial space? Does it signal reinvestment in economically depressed areas? Does it reflect increased countermeasures against distracted driving/walking?

These sorts of questions will be explored during my residency in the ArtLab, which is concerned with documenting and interpreting patterns of urbanization, pedestrian safety, and rezoning strategies. During the residency, Gallery A will hold an exhibition titled Zonification, featuring several photographic works as well as works from the “Counting Cars” series.

 

Artist Biography:

Susan Campbell is an Oshawa-based interdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of lens-based media, installation and intervention, and design. She obtained an MFA in Art, Media and Design from OCADU after extensive studies in design and digital media in her native Ireland. Her work frequently explores physical mapping practices as a means to interpret and reflect on the design dynamics found within the urban landscape, confronting issues brought about by the intensification of urban development. Her work prompts people think about and question the economic frameworks that underpin their built environment, particularly how such frameworks engender a visual culture that is predominantly techno-graphic in nature. Campbell has recently exhibited at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Cambridge Galleries, and Katherine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects and XPACE Cultural Centre in Toronto, and she was awarded 1st prize in the Visual Arts Mississauga 35th Annual Juried Show of Fine Art in 2013. Campbell currently teaches art and design at Durham College and OCADU.

 

Artist Talk: June 26, 1pm

Reception: RMG Fridays, July 8, 7-10pm

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves…”
– Mary Oliver from “Wild Geese”

As a creature, without devices, I cannot stare directly at the sun. I come to know it indirectly, through its light and heat. Perhaps this method of coming into knowing is true for other things seen and unseen?

The artworks in The Angle of the Sun’s Rays, each in their own way, poetically investigate primal energies of Nature by way of painting. They address obliquely the messy business (affection, anxiety, love, loyalty, fear, responsibility, hope) of being embedded in a field of vital interrelatedness. Through the use of wiping, washing, masking, revision, erasure and evaporation the work emerges over time in a generative process.

Made specifically for the Gallery A space, the artworks verge on installation and attempt to embody phenomena of light, atmosphere, growth and time within landscape. In this project, I consider the surface of the canvas to be a site to hold and inhabit. A site for the pleasure of making and looking, a place to cultivate conditions for embodiment and for being alone together.

I wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council.

 

Artist’s Biography:
Laura Madera received her BFA from Emily Carr University, BC and an MFA from the University of Guelph, ON. Her practice explores the potential of watercolour as a poetic means to investigate phenomena and form in relation to perception and place. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Evans Contemporary in Peterborough ON, Monastiraki in Montreal QC, The Bakery on Franklin in Vancouver BC and is held in private collections across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. She was named as one of Canada’s most promising emerging painters by the Magenta Foundation. Born in Toronto, she currently lives in Peterborough, ON. She is a recipient of an Emerging Artist Production grant from the Ontario Arts Council and serves as a member of the Board of Directors at Artspace.

 

Reserving the Light: Steps to an Ecology of Painting
Written by Nadja Pelkey

In Response to
The Angle of The Sun’s Rays
By Laura Madera

 

“What is true of the species that live together in a wood is also true of the groupings and sorts of people in a society, who are similarly in an uneasy balance of dependency and competition. And the same truth holds right inside you, where there is an uneasy physiological competition and mutual dependency among the organs, tissues, cells, and so on. Without this competition and dependency you would not be, because you cannot do without any of the competing organs and parts. If any of the parts did not have the expansive characteristics they would go out, and you would go out, too.”

– Gregory Bateson, Conscious Purpose Versus Nature, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, pg 438

 

Laura Madera’s The Angle of the Sun’s Rays dissolves the distinctions between the working body and the body of work. Her practice is an ecology, a system of interdependent actions producing works that are at once enchanting and alienating. Working in watercolour, Madera has a sort of bifurcated methodology; some works – those on primed canvas, sit on the surface of the support. As thick as a warm breath they are stilled but remain eternally changeable. On paper the paint is absorbed directly into the support, into the fibers from which they can scarcely be separated.  Between the methodologies is Madera, carefully attending to the qualities of the materials she works with as she negotiates an understanding of the natural phenomena which informs her painting.

A conversation with her about the show – remotely, over a sometimes fuzzy internet connection – turns from painting to gardening to a radio program, a poem, someone’s ideas of retreating and living on the land, and back into the studio, landing on light. It seems to emanate from these works, as if they are glowing. Snow Static Stars is as confounding as it is beautiful – Madera talks about finding ways to “reserve the light” in her studio practice. She says “you cannot hold light, it’s so transient”, and yet she’s found a way to resist the paint seeping into the brightest fibers. Lichen Island uses the absence of material, of paint, as central, the undisturbed surface forms the subject and reverberates between the glowing absence and an acidic palette.

The ways in which Madera works in her studio, (a converted out-building beside her house) she likens to gardening. Preparing the paper supports as if she’s tending soil, carefully creating the necessary conditions to grow her work. The process is slow, especially with the larger works and requires a great deal of patience on her part – there is a lot of waiting, evaluating, intuiting, and considering. Madera is adept at developing inventive ways of working with an elusive material. She doesn’t situate herself in a position of mastery but rather in a dialogue between her and the material, informed by a wholistic approach to the observation and research of natural systems and phenomena. Madera mirrors the processes of the systems she examines in a fashion that is more biological than pure logic.

The works on canvas have their own methodology, as the pigment sits on the surface, malleable, Madera is able to wash, and redact, layer, and remove. The interplay is more immediate and gestural. Tall Trees is abstracted and geometric, alluding visually to the entropic remains of Bertram Brooker’s Vitalism. In Hail and Rose moon and grasses the light is a scar on the surface of the work. The canvas works are discrete in size, and zoom in and out in imaginary scale from the cellular and the interstellar. Bump bump is a complicated work that challenges the thin fact of watercolour with an expansive depth. Bodily and geographical it is representative of the multiple territories Madera’s paintings occupy.

Madera is in league with artists like Lucia Nogueira, and Amy Sillman carefully attending to the inherent qualities of materials as they use their work as a means of wayfinding within the larger world with a sense of perversion and humour. The exploration of phenomena isn’t a sterile, lab based exploration – it’s ameoba sex, it’s coincidence and observation and communication. The ecology is just as served by what can falter as what can be clearly expressed. When everything is interdependent everything counts.

– Nadja Pelkey, May 2016

Reception and Awards Ceremony: June 9, 2-4pm

In partnership with the Oshawa Public Libraries (OPL) and Oshawa Senior Citizens Centres (OSCC), the RMG presents artists, aged 55+, on the occasion of the 8th annual Seniors Art Competition and Exhibition. We are showcasing work that demonstrates the artists’ unique perspectives and reflections regarding memory and memories.

The month of June also marks Seniors’ Month and as such, we are celebrating Oshawa’s senior community while engaging the public on a topic that is both meaningful and accessible to all.

On June 9 during the awards ceremony and opening reception, with the presence of the honourable Oshawa Mayor John Henry, prizes were presented to the winning artists. First prize went to Ron Baird, Second prize to Karen Buck-Mackintosh and third prize to Paul Guthenberg. The winners each received gift certificates to Curry’s Art Supplies.

The jury included Margaret Rodgers, a visual artist and published writer, founder of the IRIS Group and former art teacher at Durham and Centennial Colleges, and Eric Sanguine a longtime supporter of the Oshawa Public Libraries, illustrator and art enthusiast.

 

Introduction: RMG Fridays May 6, 7-10pm

Artist Talk: May 15, 1-3pm

Performance – Data Collection: May 29, 2:30pm

Performance – Data Visualization: June 26, 2pm

During her residency in the Art Lab, Jessica Field will be experimenting with relational aesthetics and drawing to create a body of work that focuses on the influences that technology and science have on the way people socially develop their identities.

Through her performance research, she will be creating fictional spaces and developing relational encounters with participants to create maps of how they relate to technology and science and attempt to place how their subjective values and feelings are connected.

Most of Field’s works are parodies on the scientific methods, gender issues and the tension between subjective values, feelings, prestige and how these function in the technological complexity of our current culture.

The Magic Gumball Machine of Fate is an artist’s multiple project that distributes work by Canadian creators and makes art affordable for everyone. The project is curated by Catherine Heard. A new artist edition will be available each month and will be launched the evening of RMG Fridays!

Current Edition:

• July 2016: Keener Badge, Shannon Gerard

Upcoming Edition:

• August 2016: Quit Your Day Job: Iron On Transfers
• September 2016: Melissa Arruda: Manadala

Past Editions:

• November 2015: Cat’s Eye, Moira Clark
• December 2015: Persistence of Polyhedrons, Penelope Stewart
• January 2016: Crytographs, Andy Fabo
• February 2016: The Astounding Thaumantrope, Jennifer Linton
• March 2016: Some Phlags, David Poolman and Matthew Williamson
• April 2016: April Fool’s Mix!
• May 2016: CUPS (Compulsory University Problematic Society), a collective of OCAD students
• June 2016: Another Day With You, Erin Candela & Paula Huisman

Call for Submissions

The Magic Gumball Machine of Fate is an artist’s multiples project that distributes works by Canadian creators and makes art affordable for everyone.  Multiples are sold from classic Northern Beaver Vending Machines for $2, from machines located at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Artscape Toronto, The Artists’ Newsstand at Chester Subway station, and other Toronto locations.

Details: 

• Edition size: 75 to 150.
• Multiples may be any medium.
• Multiples must fit inside a 3” plastic ball.
• Multiples are sold for $2 each, and the full sale price is paid to the artist.
• Plastic balls for packaging are supplied to the artist (no charge)
• Past projects can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/The-Magic-Gumball-Machine-of-Fate-687503758061147/?fref=ts

Proposals:

• Proposals are accepted on an ongoing basis (no deadlines)
• Please include the following in your proposal:
  • CV
  • 5 – 10 images of your past works (with image list)
  • Written description of your proposed project
  • Photographs of a maquette of your proposed project
  • Email project submissions to [email protected]

The RMG is not the jurying body for the submission process. Please direct any questions or comments regarding this project to Independent Curator Catherine Heard at [email protected]

ArtLab Artist in Residence: March 30 – April 22

Gallery A Exhibition: April 19 – May 29

Introduction: RMG Fridays April 1, 7-10pm

Reception: RMG Fridays May 6, 7-10pm

Artist Talk: May 15, 1-3pm

Ruth Read received her BFA (sculpture) from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. Since then she has exhibited in both group and solo shows at The Station Gallery, Whitby, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, the Visual Arts Centre, Clarington, and the Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, as well as other galleries in Ontario and St. John’s, Newfoundland. She has taught art classes at The Station Gallery, the Haliburton School of the Arts, the Visual Arts Centre, Clarington and for Fleming College.

An interest in structure and articulation is an underlying factor in all of my work. It has led directly to my interest in life drawing, portraiture, painting and installation sculptures, which incorporate the proportions of the human figure. I create an environment conceived in painterly terms while dealing with real and illusionary space. The viewer’s visual participation is engaged by using familiar objects which direct the mood of the work through association of ideas.

Inspired by the song by Fredrick Brooks, “Nine empty rooms” is a multi media sculpture installation reflecting on the abandoned house, memories of the past and its occupants. Further interpretations by music and dance  will be woven through the narrative.