OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY 09 MAY 2014, 8:00PM-10:00PM
Mallory Wilkinson
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MAURA DOYLE | WHO THE POT? OPENING RECEPTION GALLERY HOURS FOR INTERVIEWS
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MICHAEL A. ROBINSON | THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS
Michael A. Robinson: Panoptic Illuminations (2013). Found lamps, electrical cords, metal stands, lights, 11' x 11' x 11'. Photo credit: Denis Farley Through two large sculptural installations and a series of cast wall panels, Michael A. Robinson displays his creative reflections on the idea of spectatorship and non-objectivity in art. Inspired by Russian Suprematist artist Kasimir Malevich and his White on White painting, Robinson has spent 20 years pondering the material aspect of the object, which is often indivisible from its concept. Subject to Scrutiny consist of several rolling cameras focused on one wall and Panoptic Illumination is composed of dozens of lamps all pointing toward the center of the work, recalling Michel Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon. Robinson’s techniques of assemblage and accumulation of objects in midair challenge their main purpose as well as the relationships between subject and object, artist and medium, spectator and work. In both pieces, the cameras and lamps are pointed at the epicenter referring to the meaning of the works. MICHAEL A. ROBINSON holds a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from Université de Paris I/Panthéon-Sorbonne. He qualifies his own practice as the result of tangled ideas, thoughts and experiences which esteem transparency over rigor, practice over the final product, transformation and opening over conclusions and affirmations. His most recent group shows include Art Histories, VOX Centre de l’image, (2012),Québec Gold, Reims, France (2008), la Biennale nationale de sculpture contemporaine, Trois-Rivières (2006), and Avancer dans le brouillard, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2004). He has had many solo exhibitions, most recently at gallery Antoine Ertaskiran, Montreal (2013), who represents him in Montréal. His works are part of numerous public and private collections, such as the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the Canada Council Art Bank. Robinson lives and works in Montréal where he teaches part-time at UQAM’s Department of Visual and Media Arts. MAURA DOYLE | WHO THE POT?
Maura Doyle: Mons Pubis (2014). Stoneware, barrel fired with wood shavings and ketchup chips, 10.5" x 10.5" x 20”. Photo credit: Maura Doyle
This exhibition is the result of researching and thinking about pots through the process of making them. What can we learn from the pot? The pot includes several forms, such as the bottle, jug, jar, and pitcher. The pot is a container that is traditionally used to store food or drink. The pot is an elemental and ancient form, and root word of the term pottery. Who the Pot? presents a variety of pot-like containers; handmade stoneware set on custom-built supports. From a to-go coffee cup to a Ming dynasty gourd-shaped bottle, these hollow forms with holes are reminiscent of prehistoric, modern, and mass-produced vessels. Metal artifact-stands and white boxes remove pots from their original use as functional vessels. Instead, viewers can take note of the pot’s form, which is the perfect form for fired clay. Clay forms must be hollow and have a hole, just like a pot. The pots in this exhibition were created through the primitive process of coiling and pinching clay and firing the results in an open fire. These techniques involve collaboration with outside forces. Hand building was the first forming technique developed and has been practiced for thousands of years, often by women potters who are able to do this slow, bit-by-bit work alongside domestic duties of childcare and food preparation. It’s a-one-on-one bodily relationship, as if the pot and potter work together to create something. Pots have weird and hidden internal spaces, familiar to only the potter. Like all pots, the walls rise up capturing space, creating form, both natural and human. Once dried, the pots are fired in a barrel, a process that causes “flashing” from the unpredictable burning of combustibles, such as hardwood, softwood, newspaper, wood shavings, salt or other high sodium materials like seaweed or dill pickle chips. The resulting surface is galactic: pots are dark, black, and brown with a constellation splattering of white, grey, rust, and smears of yellows and powder blue. The pot and the potter create the pot together; slowing down time as each coil is attached. It could be called the pot continuum; the capturing of spaceand time; the convergence of past, present, and future through a pot. For pots are made with earth. They have holes. They contain space. Pots have necks, feet, and mouths. They represent culture but also embody the natural world. They are ancient. They are cosmic. Pots are not just clay objects but elemental entities that connect the potter, the pot, and the viewer to the vast and wild universe. MAURA DOYLE holds a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute (Vancouver) and an MFA from the University of Guelph. Her multidisciplinary work includes video, ceramics, sculpture, book works, posters and drawing. Exhibitions include New Age Beaver, Modern Fuel, Kingston (2013), Garbologic Objects, Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto (2012), Bone Dump, Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche Toronto (2011), Dedicated to you, but you weren’t listening, Power Plant, Toronto (2005), and The Cave and the Island, White Columns, New York (2004). She is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto and lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.   YYZ LENDING LIBRARY BOOK RETURN
YYZBOOKS, 2012. Photo credit: Allan Kosmajac ATTENTION ALL YYZ LENDING LIBRARY MEMBERS: Return any overdue library book during the opening reception on Friday,May 09, and receive one FREE drink! Remember there are only two copies of each book available for lending purposes, please be kind and return your book! YYZ ARTISTS' OUTLET
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