The Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) Annual Juried Exhibition at the John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto, Ontario.

This Year's exhibition was called "Darkness to Light", and was held March 6th to 30th, 2012.

My accepted entry "Nocturne" won the Curry's Award.

My other entries were "Dream" a drawing and "Gathered" Mixed media construction.

Grimsby Public Art Gallery  2012

Juried Exhibition

“Roots” was accepted into the Biannual Ontario Wide Juried Exhibition.

The Jurors were Carolyn Dover – Artist/Instructor, Ivan Jurakic – Director/Curator university of Waterloo Art Gallery, and Stuart Reid – Director/Curator Rodman Hall Art Centre.

The exhibition runs from Aug 31^st to Oct 7^th, 2012.

Harvest Baskets

Cultural Capital of Canada Project 2012

Niagara has been designated a cultural capital of Canada, along with Calgary.  I am a participant in two Niagara projects affiliated with this program. Both projects were an open-juried competition for Niagara artists.

The first is “Harvest Baskets”, a mixed media project by a group of artists, from different parts of the Niagara Region, working in different media.

The project is based on large photos of the escarpment, divided into panels, with each artist interpreting a section of the panel in their own medium.  These panels will then form two large murals for the Regional Headquarters in St Catharines.  As well as the two mixed media murals, there will be five individual panels dealing with Harvest and Niagara’s Bounty.

My panel is based on a photo taken of a collection of discarded, broken, wooden fruit baskets. 

 My medium is porcelain mosaic.  I treated the subject by pressing and stamping different dates, months, and words such as Apples, Cherries, Pears, etc., along with small icons of the same into thin sheets of porcelain. I then applied Iron Chromate to the sheets of porcelain and wiped them like an etching plate, leaving black printing. 

 The sheets were then fired in a kiln, fractured, and set as mosaic pieces to fit the design of the baskets. 

  I used a black grout to give the overall effect of a drawing.

Jordan Museum

Cultural Capital of Canada Project

The second project was a site-specific installation for the schoolhouse at the Jordan Museum in Jordan Village.  This was a one-day show on the Museum grounds with twenty-three participating artists.  I called my installation “Now I know my ABC’s”.  It consisted of 6 small children’s mannequins which had been collaged with photos of regional maps, street maps, buildings, faces, letters, and numbers.  The collage became the children’s clothing. 

 

 Six porcelain heads were imprinted with letters and numbers and hung above the mannequins. 

 A selection of large and small letters surrounded a large convex mirrored dome on the ground.  The children and the letters were reflected in the dome.  The installation had multiple readings dealing with urbanization and population growth.

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition 2012

The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, held at Nathan Philips Square, is Canada’s largest juried outdoor art exhibition with over three hundred exhibitors.  It is a three-day show, with artists from all over Canada participating.

Nathan Philips Square is still under re-modelling and will hopefully be finished next summer to accommodate the usual  500 artists.

"Ignite"     2012

Hamilton Potters Guild Biennale, at Carnegie Gallery, Dundas.

I entered three new pieces in this exhibition.  My “Book of Days” was accepted and was given a Purchase Award for the Guild’s collection.

"Red"               2012

City of St Catharines Public Art Advisory Committee annual juried show, this year called “Red, an exploration of the most primary of colours” accepted my piece “Earth Views – Night to Day”.  The show exhibiting seventeen local artists runs from April 30^th to Aug 17^th, 2012.