Opening Saturday May 25th: Larry Eisentein's 'Negative Capable' and Eric Farache's 'Quixtopia'

Larry Eisenstein

Negative Capable

May 25th – June 16th, 2013 Reception: Saturday, May 25th, 2- 5 PM

Q & A Saturday, June 8th, 2PM: with Eric Farache and moderator Oleksandr Wlasenko

loop Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition by member artist Larry Eisenstein entitled, Negative Capable.

Romantic poet John Keats used the term negative capability to describe an artist's receptiveness to the world and its natural marvel, and the struggle of human beings to transcend and revise their contexts. Philosopher Roberto Unger appropriated Keats' term in order to explain resistance to rigid social divisions and hierarchies. For psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, negative capability was the ability to tolerate the pain and confusion of not knowing, rather than imposing ready-made or omnipotent certainties upon an ambiguous situation or emotional challenge.

Eisenstien links Keat’s interpretation of negative capability to the heart, Unger’s to the body, and Bion’s to the mind. Together, this trinity of intimacy, passion, and commitment encapsulate the joys and anxieties Eisenstein experiences as he creates numerous meticulously patterned drawings of free-form viral clusters.

Eisenstein is a Toronto-based visual artist who teaches art at Humber College. His work has been placed in private collections across North America.

Please join the artist in celebrating the exhibition opening on Saturday, May 25th from 2-5 PM. Learn more about Eisenstein’s work during a Q & A session with Eric Farache and moderator,

Oleksandr Wlasenko on Saturday, June 8th, at 2 PM.

Image: Ring (detail), ink on paper, 8.5 x 11 in, 2013

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Eric Farache

Quixtopia

May 25th – June 16th, 2013 Reception: Saturday, May 25th, 2- 5 PM

Q & A Saturday, June 8th, 2PM: with Larry Eisenstein and moderator Oleksandr Wlasenko

loop Gallery is pleased to announce Quixtopia, a new exhibition by member artist Eric Farache.

Farache's Quixtopia plays with visions of future utopias from a mind that exists in the tipping point between boyhood and manhood, a future where magical creatures and naked ladies could both exist. An imagined perfected reality from that narrow window, precisely when one foot is in childhood heroes, another in x-rated fantasy.

Every canvas/sheet of paper is a utopia that the artist attempts to build up or destroy with each mark. A utopia is an ideal, forever not to be realized, as soon as something becomes concrete and tangible the ideal is lost- ideals which are the very windmills we hurl ourselves toward again and again.

These paintings reveal broken perfections, moments of happiness gone awry, these befuddling and lost utopias- these Quixtopias.

Farache was born in 1971. He received a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Leeds, and is an Alumni of the Ontario College of Art in Toronto where he lives and works. Trained in classical painting techniques, he has been working in photography for the past 10 years, while maintaining elaborate sketchbooks as part of his artist practice. Quixtopia, is Farache’s second show of larger painted works with loop Gallery.

Please join the artist in celebrating the exhibition opening on Saturday, May 25th from 2-5 PM. Learn more about the artist’s work during a Q & A session with Larry Eisenstein and moderator,

Oleksandr Wlasenko on Saturday, June 8th, at 2 PM. Image: Hail! Hail! The gang is all here (detail), watercolour on paper, 22 x 30in, 2013

loop Thanks : AUDAXlaw Sumac.com

Last Chance to see JJ lee, Mei Ogden and Ester Pugliese's Show at loop

Closing This Week JJ Lee & Mei Lee Ogden: Sign Languages | Ester Pugliese: Disfluency and Delay JJ Lee & Mei Lee Ogden, "My Little Pony" (2013) Ester Pugliese, "Impromptu Performance: Branson School Chamber Singers and Singing Iceberg" (2013) FINAL DAYS:  Thurs, May 16, 12-5pm.  Fri, May 17,12-5pm.  Sat, May 18, 12-5pm.  Sun, May 19, 1-4pm. Five-year-old Mei was identified as Hard of Hearing at the relatively late age of three and a half; consequently, her spoken language development was delayed. Before turning four, she received her first hearing aids, and heard birds for the first time. Using gouache, glitter paint, wax crayons, watercolour, and pencil crayons, JJ Lee and her daughter explore the space between high and low art, visual and spoken language, mark making and representation, hearing and Deaf, narrative and abstraction. Lee is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University, and has lived and exhibited from coast to coast. She is the recipient of several awards and her work is in both private and public collections. Mei Lee Ogden is currently in Senior Kindergarten. She is also in the second year of a specialized Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. The mixed media works in Pugliese’s Disfluency and Delay consider the human inclination to adjust outward appearances, illustrating this tendency with contrasting examples from nature. Each work presents audio graphs of impromptu performances culled from YouTube videos, layered with audio spectrograms of natural events (glacial collisions, ice fractures, earthquakes), sculptural forms implying air movement, and charted output and capacity data from Ontario's wind farms. Pugliese is a Toronto-based artist who has exhibited her work in Canada and England. She holds a BFA from York University and received the Humber College Board of Governors Achievement Award with her post-graduate certificate in Arts Administration/Cultural Management. Her work is in private and public collections in North America and Europe, including the Donovan Collection at the University of Toronto.

a visit with JJ Lee

Tell us about how you adapt your studio and your practice in order to collaborate with your daughter?

It started with me putting up a big piece of paper to play and experiment on. I knew that my daughter would want to draw on it so I allowed it, especially since my studio is in my house. However, I didn't realize that this was all going to develop into an exhibition! We would wake up on Saturday mornings and paint together in our pyjamas. The biggest challenge for me, especially as an painting professor, was to NOT say anything and allow whatever happened to happen. She had full choice of materials and colours, I did no direction whatsoever. We would draw on top of each other's marks, etc. 

What did she teach you about your work?

She reminded me to play and focus on the process rather than the end result. She taught me to silence the critical voice that is present while working. She reminded me that I love working large scale, loose and full of colour! It was important to me to work with her at this age, before the self-consciousness in drawing developed. It's right before the age that children are preoccupied with realism as the main objective. It's about responsive mark-making, narrative, movement, exploration. Things that I try to teach my students that she has naturally. (And has not been taught out of her in the school system yet!)

What will you carry over into your next body of work?

I plan to continue working large scale mixed media drawings, and allow a more intuitive, playful process to enter the work. In one piece, Fairy Tales, Mei made a giant tree. I like this idea and metaphor. I might continue with that imagery.

What do you listen to while you work?

Mei's singing made up songs and telling stories about what she was drawing.

What would you do if you didn't paint?

Cook! 
Equally creative but more practical!








Thanks for inviting us into your studio JJ!
JJ and Mei's exhibition Sign Languages continues at loop Gallery until May 18th.
You can also see more of JJ's work at 
www.jjlee.ca 

JJ and Mei Lee's Q&A with curator and moderator Carla Garnet

Q&A with moderator Carla Garnet and loop artist JJ Lee

This SUNDAY May 5th at 2PM, loop Gallery welcomes Art Gallery of Peterborough Curator, Carla Garnet, to moderate a discussion with exhibiting artist, JJ Lee. Don't miss it! April 27 - May 19, 2013 JJ Lee & Mei Lee Ogden Sign Languages Five-year-old Mei was identified as Hard of Hearing at the relatively late age of three and a half; consequently, her spoken language development was delayed. Before turning four, she received her first hearing aids, and heard birds for the first time. Using gouache, glitter paint, wax crayons, watercolour, and pencil crayons, JJ Lee and her daughter explore the space between high and low art, visual languages, mark making and representation, process and result, narrative and abstraction. Their marks overlap and interact, blurring these distinctions. This body of work explores the primacy of drawing and Lee’sinterest in art education and creative development in our current system. Lee, (BFA, NSCAD 1992, MFA, York 1999) was born and raised in Halifax and has lived and exhibited from coast to coast. A recipient of several awards, she currently is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University. Mei Lee Ogden was born in Toronto and is currently in Senior Kindergarten. She is also in the second year of a specialized Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. Her favourite colours are pink and purple, and she loves olives and blue cheese. JJand Mei live with James Ogden, a kindergarten teacher in Toronto. The three of them are currently learning American Sign Language. A portion of proceeds from the sale of artwork will be donated to the Canadian Hearing Society.