…..For immediate release October 15, 2003

NICOLE COLLINS
branch, New Paintings
October 25 – November 22, 2003 Opening: Saturday October 25, 2-5pm

We are pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Nicole Collins.

sample, a survey exhibition of Collins work was presented at the Embassy of Canada, Tokyo, Japan, 2002. It was during her stay in Japan that the seeds of the new body of work evolved. A specific branch from a tree in Jingu Naien, more accurately, its searching line is one of her influences as are strands of hair. Collins says of the new work; “…stripe paintings emerged as a way of parsing the complexity of plant material …the patterns appear random but, of course, there is no ‘random’. The layers of wax, the ambient temperature, the strength of my conviction to dig in, all of these contribute to the end result.”

The process of painting with wax is a quick and unforgiving, but one which Collins handles very well to create her own language as an abstract painter. In the catalogue for sample, the essayist for the exhibition, Ihor Holubizky, writes; “…- her objective (for the non-objective) is not to reach a prescribed end, but to engage a fluidity as she works. The story evolves in the act of painting. Her medium, encaustic wax, must be melted and in a fluid state before it can be applied. That may be true for oil paint, but wax hardens quickly and the decisions – the yes-and-no – must also be quick, done with physical and conceptual agility. Wax suspends, it captures things, but in Collins’ work ideas are not fossilized: we are witness to the fresh trails of life. And if read that way, we can look at the paintings as if staring into the face of creation – that of the painting, and the idea.” The catalogue is available at the gallery.

Other Exhibition News – October & November

Gerald Ferguson; Drop Cloth Paintings, new work, opens at Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, Halifax on October 17th and continues to November 23rd. A substantial catalogue with an essay by Gary Michael Dault is being published and will also be available at Wynick/Tuck Gallery for our exhibition of the Drop Cloth Paintings in Spring 2004. Gerald Ferguson Recent Paintings, a travelling exhibition curated by James Patton opens at the Art Gallery of Calgary, November 21 – January 25, 2004. This exhibition, organised and exhibited by the Winnipeg Art Gallery the travelled to Museum London, London, Ontario and comes to an end of it’s tour in Calgary. Also, Ferguson’s work is included in a group exhibition, Lines Painted in Early Spring, curated by Patrick Mahon, on view at The Koffler Gallery, Toronto until November 30th.

Sara Angelucci premiered a new video, Seeking Grace, commissioned and presented by V Tape for the Colin Campbell Sessions, October 9, as part of the Trans Tech Festival, Toronto.

Ted Rettig; a survey of Rettig’s work is included in a two person exhibition, Sites and Sentinels, at the Joseph D. Carrier Art Gallery, Toronto, October 21 – Nov. 21.

Janice Gurney and Arlene Stamp are two of the three artists, (Mary Scott is the third) included in the exhibition Blind Stairs, co-curated by Joan Stebbins of the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge and Ingrid Jenkner of the Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery, Halifax where the exhibition opened in March of this year. It opens November 22 and continues through January 11 at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery before travelling to the Nickle Art Museum, Calgary and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston in 2004. A catalogue to accompany the exhibition is available.

Toronto International Art Fair, 2003, Booth 203
We are looking forward to our exhibition at the Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto Convention Centre, November 14 – 17, where we will be featuring, amongst others, Kim Adams, Paul Butler, Cora Cluett, Inés Lombardi and Kelly Mark. Butler and Mark are also included in The News at 5:00, a series of daily feature exhibitions of contemporary Canadian art, curated by Richard Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art Magazine. Austrian artist, Lombardi is included in the special exhibition, Vice Versa, the first of a two part series of reciprocal shows of contemporary Austrian and Canadian art.