ANGELL GALLERY is pleased to present PAPER TRAILS, an exhibition of works on paper. Featured artists are NAPOLEON BROUSSEAU aka NAPO B, JAKUB DOLEÄ´S, KIM DORLAND, STEVE DRISCOLL, DANA HOLST, DANIEL HUTCHINSON and P. ELAINE SHARPE. The exhibition runs throughout the gallery from November 30 to December 21, 2013. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, November 30 from 1 - 4PM.
Works on paper, long an integral part of the art world, are the subject of great interest these days, with dedicated fairs such as Works on Paper Art Fair in London, England, and Papier in Montreal, offering both historical and contemporary paper-based works. Whether studies for creations in other media or finished works of art in their own right, works on paper can have distinct appeal, exuding a special intimacy. They also offer an affordable option for emerging collectors. The artists in PAPER TRAILS, all mid-career, use the paper surface to explore traditional themes in new and exciting ways.
The human body, a staple of art for centuries, provides a vehicle for the exploration of sexuality and sensuality. In Napo B’s lush charcoal drawings, fragments of naked male, female and hermaphroditic bodies cavort in ambiguous rituals. P. Elaine Sharpe, best known for her photography, surprises in her use of liquid silver paint to create shimmering pin-up style silhouettes. Dana Holst, by contrast, pokes sly fun at girly magazine stereotypes, in her series of intaglio prints of voluptuous nudes rapturously engaged in household chores.
Jakub Doleĵs and Daniel Hutchinson reflect upon the built environment. An expressionistic graphite and collage diptych by Dolejs presents a bleak vision of urbanism, greyed out and in decline. Hutchinson’s drawings are preliminary mediations for the concepts behind Paintings For Electric Light - the artist’s solo YYZ Artists’ Outlet Exhibition earlier this year.
The cool pallor of the artificial world is balanced in PAPER TRAILS by vibrant landscapes by two contemporary masters, both of whom challenge conventions while simultaneously paying homage to this most Canadian of subjects. Using brilliant tones of poured urethane, Steve Driscoll paints vivid, swirling landscapes that straddle the borders of fantasy and reality.
Kim Dorland, currently the subject of a solo exhibition at Canada’s esteemed McMichael Gallery, is one of today’s most highly regarded landscape painters. Noted for imbuing his wilderness scenes with intense psychological import, for PAPER TRAILS Dorland is presenting a series of small-scale oil and watercolours landscape and figure studies produced during his residency at the McMichael. This special collection will be presented in Angell Gallery’s Project Space.
Artist Bios
Jakub Doleĵs, a Czech-born artist now based in London, England, received his MFA in painting in 1998 from the Academy for Art, Architecture and Design in Prague. His work been included in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, East International in the UK, and the National Gallery in Prague. Doleĵs has work in collections across North America, including the National Gallery of Canada.
Napo B (Napoleon Brousseau), a graduate of Ontario College of Art and Design, was a founder of internationally acclaimed artist collective Fastwurms. A multi-disciplinarian, Brousseau has his new media project, SEED, presented at the Winter Olympics in Whistler BC in 2010 and the McMichael Gallery in 2012. Brousseau recently returned to his painterly roots with a solo exhibition at Robert Kananaj Gallery.
Kim Dorland has a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver and an MFA from York University in Toronto. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Canada and the U.S. and is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Blanton Museum of Art, Texas, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Richard Massey Foundation in New York, NY; the Royal Bank of Canada and the Sander Collection in Berlin, Germany, among numerous others.
Steve Driscoll is an award-winning Toronto-based painter who has had nine solo exhibitions and has been in numerous group shows in Canada and the U.S. His work has been featured in Canadian Art, dART International, The Telegram (NL), NOW Magazine, CBC TV and in the book, Steve Driscoll: Conversations, published in 2008. In 2010 Driscoll was the subject of a documentary on ArtSync TV.
Dana Holst is an Edmonton-based artist who has work in collections throughout North America, including those of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (Edmonton, AB), Agnes Etherington Art Centre, (Kingston, ON), Art Bank (Ottawa, ON) and Glenbow Museum (Calgary, AB). Recent exhibitions include a solo at Galerie St. Laurent + Hill in Ottawa and a two person show at the Reach Museum in Abbostford, BC (January 2014).
Daniel Hutchinson received his BFA from the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver and his MFA from NSCAD University in Halifax. Twice named a semi-finalist in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition, Hutchinson shows internationally, and was in The Painting Project at L'Université du Québec à Montréal, Imagining Disaster at Museum London, and solo shows at YYZ and Angell Gallery in Toronto.
P. Elaine Sharpe is a Toronto-based artist, educator and curator who has worked in the past primarily in the medium of photography. Sharpe has curated exhibitions for O’Born Contemporary and has been in exhibitions in Canada and the U.S. This is the first time Sharpe is exhibiting at Angell Gallery.
