In: Ontario
Lana | Transformations by Ruth Dick
June 1, 2022Lana | Transformations Photos by Ruth Dick Lana Series, Before, Image 3 - Photo by Ruth Dick LANA | TRANSFORMATIONS Photos... Read More
Necropolis | Jon Lepp
May 18, 2022Necropolis | Jon Lepp Necropolis | Jon Lepp, The Open for Business Series @deadendstories Photographs, [Virginia] Woolf claims, "are not an... Read More
Tony Calzetta – Art Is Hell
April 22, 2022Tony Calzetta Art Is Hell Bart Gazzola sat down to talk with Tony Calzetta, whose decades long practice has been both... Read More
Jug Top, Lake Superior | John Healey
June 6, 2022Jug Top, Lake Superior | John Healey
“Plastic Beach is a set of still life images of plastic refuse discovered along the shores of the Great Lakes and key locations along the St. Lawrence river.
Here, discarded shopping bags, fragments of milk jugs, and crushed bottle caps — among other things — are reanimated to show us the carelessness with which we treat this habitat that is home to millions of creatures.
It reminds us of the cost of convenience, and serves as documentation of the relentless poisoning of the environment and ultimately ourselves.”
– J. Healey
John Healey was born in Toronto and grew up along the St. Lawrence River in Brockville, Ontario. Since 2015 he has devoted himself to lens-based image creation and education. John has just completed an artist in residency and is currently a full-time educator at the School of The Photographic Arts: Ottawa. He lives with his wife Amy, and Arno their Boston terrier.
~ Peppa Martin
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Maria Simmons – Fermentation of Ideas – Femme Folks Fest Special
March 17, 2022Maria Simmons Fermentation of Ideas The COVERT Collective is pleased to be participating in Femme Folks Fest 2022. Maria Simmons is an eclectic,... Read More
Cree Tylee – Femme Folks Fest Repost
March 17, 2022Cree Tylee ``...now I am rampant with memory....`` The COVERT Collective is pleased to be participating in Femme Folks Fest 2022. Today... Read More
Laura Jones – A Life in Photography – Femme Folks Fest Special
March 16, 2022Laura Jones A Life in Photography ~ Laura Jones The COVERT Collective is pleased to be participating in Femme Folks Fest 2022.... Read More
Amber Lee WIlliams – Femme Folks Fest Repost
March 16, 2022The work of Amber Lee Williams, an artist from the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario, almost always concerns itself with motherhood and children, exploring the concepts of life within, the constancy of change, attachment and removal, and notions of femininity.
Femina Bulla Est (Woman is a Bubble), is a sequence of macro photographs of pink bubblegum. Amber deftly takes the binary state of man’s being, as depicted by the soap bubble in Dutch Renaissance Vanitas paintings (homo bulla est) and turns it on its ear… where man is either strong or broken, women have a strength and flexibility that allows them to persevere.
“I thought I would begin by simply blowing soap bubbles, photographing them, and seeing what happened. I asked (my daughter) if she wanted to help me blow bubbles and she thought I meant bubblegum bubbles. As soon as she mentioned the bubblegum it was a total lightbulb moment, and I have to give her credit for the idea.”
Femina Bulla Est #9 is incredibly organic, suggesting a beating heart, or the crepe-like tissue of placenta. Partially inflated, one gathers that there is life within, flush with blood and good health. One could also perceive the darker top section as a scab, protecting the soft tissue below as it heals from a trauma.
“The original bubble in Vanitas paintings suddenly pops and life ends, but in my version the bubble inflates and deflates again and again. The bubble is both fragile and resilient. Beyond the more obvious, and my personal connections to motherhood (carrying a child within my body, that body stretching…), I also think of the inflated and deflated, not just as physical states but also states of mind and related to mental health.”
You can seem more of Amber’s work at https://amberleeart.com, and on Instagram @amberlee.art. ~ Mark Walton
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Gabrielle de Montmollin | Weird Baby World – Femme Folks Fest Repost
March 14, 2022Gabrielle de Montmollin’s installation Weird Baby World is both engaging and eerie, employing iconography that is evocative and somewhat unsettling. Bart Gazzola offers a response to this street level exhibition, on display at Niagara Artists Centre (NAC) in St. Catharines.
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Essay – Ron Hewson – Community Galleries
March 1, 2022Community Galleries
I’ve been putting a lot time and effort lately into a community gallery that I belong to. While doing this I’ve put some thought into why I feel it’s worth the effort. Here are some of my reasons to to belong to and participating in this endeavour.
I believe it’s important for local artists to have a place to hang their work. Putting my work on a wall in a public space means I feel that I have created something that is worthy of public display. This matters because the emotional investment in producing art needs that outlet. Showing in a gallery is the reward for the time and money put into our work. I know I would continue to work regardless of belonging to a gallery but knowing that I can share what I have made is incentive to keep working.
Belonging to the gallery means I have to finish things. Every couple months I need new framed finished work to display. As a photographer I can capture a vast number of images. However that really doesn’t mean anything if I don’t finish any of them. Sure I can do some quick editing and post them on Instagram or do some more careful work and post on a stock photo site but that’s not the same as taking the extra steps to print and frame something. The incentive to finish work is a big benefit of belonging to the gallery.
Preparing work for the community gallery on a regular basis is far less stressful that preparing for a major gallery show. I’ve done shows at “big” galleries. The thrill and sense of accomplishment that comes from that kind of show can’t be beat. But the investment in time and money can be overwhelming. Its not something that everyone is prepared to do or is willing to do and for most people its out of reach. The community gallery fills that need perfectly. It gives the opportunity to exhibit that is manageable for artists who want to exhibit without the stress of a solo show.
There are many other reason the gallery is worth my time such as the diversity of the art on display and the camaraderie of follow artists but what makes to gallery valuable to me is the incentive to keep working. I believe that everyone needs some form of incentive and that for me is to have my photography physically present in the world. While posting something online might get seen by lots of people we don’t paint or sculpt or create our art to be seen on a phone.
Visit uptowngallerywaterloo.com
~ Ron Hewson
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