May 25 – June 23, 2012
Opening: Friday, May 25, 7 – 9 p.m.
Artist Talks with Bell & Lane: Friday, May 25, 6 – 7 p.m.
Open Studio Gallery
401 Richmond Street West #104
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T: 416.504.8238
E: office@openstudio.on.ca
www.openstudio.on.ca
Hours: Tue – Sat 12 – 5 p.m.
Open Studio is pleased to present the first of two 2012 Visiting Artists¹ Exhibitions featuring Toronto-based artists Mark Crofton Bell and Catherine Lane, May 25 June 23, 2012. Each year, Open Studio selects four professional artists with or without printmaking experience to create works in the print medium of their choice, working closely with a professional print artist to realize their projects. These exhibitions by Bell and Lane are the result of this intensive work period.
Mark Crofton Bell, Crime Spree, aquatint, sugarlift, open bite on paper 8″ x 12″, 2011. Printed by Laine Groeneweg under the auspices of the Open Studio Visiting Artist Residency, 2011-12
Mark Crofton Bell has long used media imagery culled from newspapers, and in his first foray into printmaking he continues this trajectory. Inspired by his interest in how the narrative of a photograph shifts once it is rendered in a different medium and separated from explanatory text, during his Visiting Artist Residency at Open Studio, Bell has created a series of aquatint prints based on newspaper photographs, which distill the current state of the world into a cross section of images. Despite attempts at accuracy, there are inevitable imperfections inherent in the translation process; imperfections that are a result of allowing the etching process to dictate as much as possible the outcome of the final image. The various constraints of etching tend to emphasize this (mis)translation, resulting in prints that, although similar to the original source material, remain independent of it. A text by Katie Bethune-Leamen accompanies the exhibition.
Catherine Lane, detail from the Farm Series, screenprint on paper 30″ x 22″, 2011. Printed by Daryl Vocat under the auspices of the Open Studio Visiting Artist Residency, 2011-12
Through the use of drawing-based installation, Catherine Lane focuses on the idea of the multiplicity of fragmented storytelling, where connections and conclusions are not definitive, but where the focus is instead placed on the numerous possibilities of what the story can be. During her Visiting Artist Residency at Open Studio, Lane has created Farm, a series of prints wherein an image of a barn structure acts as the base for each individual print. Providing a setting for the narrative, the barn serves as the one constant, over which multiple images/fragments of the story are printed. While the barn exists as a fixed point in time, the images around it occur at various moments in the narrative timeframe, collapsing in on one another, yet anchored to a single location. The narrative information given varies from one print to the next and allows for interpretive variation. A text by Sholem Krishtalka accompanies the exhibition.
For more information please visit www.openstudio.on.ca/images_site/bell-lane-brochure.pdf.
David Faltenhine
Tom Legrady
