NEW WORK, NEW ARTISTS, NEW SPACE
Glebe gallery offers rich sampling of work by promising art-school grads
Surfacing, an exhibition of work by fresh-minted graduates of the fine arts program at the University of Ottawa, is new work by new artists in a new space, the recently opened Gallery SixtySix in the Glebe.
There’s no telling yet which of the young artists will survive in the art world, as early signs of greatness can fade away just as easily as an early lack of spark can later burn brightly. As exhibition curator Michael Orsini says, “the art world is cruel.” All a recent arts grad can do is to work hard and keep learning — always learning, forever.
A few highlights from the exhibition:
The Big Beat blue ribbon (well, this is a student show) goes to Chelsea Jodoin, whose work demonstrates a grand sense of space, colour and, when needed, humour. The centrepiece of the exhibition is Maelstrom, Jodoin’s semi-abstracted scene of a room that seems caught in an interior storm of colour. Such energy in a seemingly empty room, such musical fluidity in her wash of soft, bright colours (the same colours I see in the work of others who have studied and/or taught at U of O in recent years, from Andrew Morrow to Melanie Authier to Elle Chae and Amy Schissel — though Schissel, in her large abstractions of cyberspace, electrifies, and thereby changes, the colours).
Jodoin also succeeds with Hideaway, an impressionistic forest scene with a person peeking out from behind a tree. It’s whimsical yet open to serious interpretation, and that it’s in an entirely different style than used is Maelstrom demonstrates Jodoin’s reach.
Katie Wilde is similarly diverse. Wilde has a series of surreal still lifes, which are like a cross between Georgia O’Keeffe and a flashback to the Flemish 17th century.
In Tidepooling, a skull seems to sprout wings and do an aerial dance with tissue and fauna, and it is weirdly compelling. Then Wilde has an impressionistic scene in which an elderly gent sits in a tub in the middle of a lush jungle. It’s titled Humans Provide Essential Carbon Dioxide and Can Improve the Look of Any Space.
Jodoin and Wilde seem to have much in common, and they’re a pair of young artists to watch.
Niya Mirtcheva, in her painting Pseudo Interstate Nostalgia, deftly succeeds with difficult light, as a figure is silhouetted by blinding light spilling in from behind. It creates a sense of mystery, and of a moment of stillness surrounded by movement. No surprise that it sold quickly on opening night of the show.
There’s no space here to write about every artist in the show, but the others included are Ali Kramers, Antoine Paquin, Paul Raiche and Nicole Crozier. Together their work offers a rich and varied sampling of the art coming out of U of O.
Surfacing is curated by Michael Orsini, the head of the university’s Institute of Women’s Studies. Orsini is an acquaintance of Carrie Colton, who has opened Gallery SixtySix in a warren of artist studios in the building at 66 Muriel, just east of Bronson. Colton invited several people to curate exhibitions in the new space. (I declined the invitation, to avoid critical conflicts.)
Surfacing continues to Sept. 18.