{"id":23657,"date":"2014-05-08T13:28:30","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T17:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=23657"},"modified":"2014-06-02T15:06:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T19:06:23","slug":"love-art-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=23657","title":{"rendered":"Love Art 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Photo: Mitch Billinkoff<\/p>\n

May 7 \u2013 11, 2014<\/strong>
\nHeritage Court, Direct Energy Centre<\/strong>
\n100 Princes\u2019 Boulevard, Exhibition Place, Toronto
\nHours: Thur 11-6, Fri & Sat 11-7, Sun 11-6pm; Free: Fri 5-7pm<\/p>\n

Love Art has a strong art-loving history behind it, fuelled by founder Will Ramsay\u2019s desire to democratize the art-world. Way back when, in 1996, Will opened Will\u2019s Art Warehouse in southwest London to bridge the increasing interest in contemporary art and the London gallery scene. Today, Will\u2019s Art Warehouse still stands and the Affordable Art Fair has become something of a global phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Will Ramsay founder of Affordable Art Fair. Photo: Elena Iourtaeva<\/p>\n

Will, said in the Private Preview\u00a0that he really likes Toronto and the airy setting of the fair\u00a0in Direct Energy Centre. This is his first fair in Toronto but globally the\u00a099th and it has brought\u00a0good luck, since some pieces are already sold. He tried to buy\u00a0his name Affordable Art Fair, but it was already taken here, so they had to pick another name and decided on Love Art. Love Art will carry the same friendly and accessible concept as the Affordable Art Fair, with art priced between $100 to $10,000, so that the only difference is in the name.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Matthew Del Degan, Lovebot, 2014 greeted the visitors. Photo: Summer Sun<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Guests fill the narrow alleys behind Justin Pierce, Canadian Lifestyle, Cedar Strip Canoe<\/em>, 2014. Photo: Mitch Billinkoff<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Bruce Lurie Art Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Elena Iourtaeva<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>#Hashtag Gallery, Toronto. Photo: Elena Iourtaeva<\/p>\n

This year’s Love Art Fair incorporates thirty eight exhibitors with\u00a0hundreds of eye catching pieces of art mostly\u00a0from Toronto based galleries, but also bringing in a scatter of visiting galleries \u00a0from Montreal, the United States, Uganda, Beijing, France and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Evan Lurie Gallery, Indianna, USA. Photo: Elena Iourtaeva<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>China Print Art Gallery, Beijing, China. Photo: Elena Iourtaeva<\/p>\n

The aim of the show\u00a0is to provide a venue where both emerging and\u00a0established artists could come together with new buyers in a space where affordable pieces could bridge the gap between these two groups. Love Art created a welcoming environment; gallery owners and artists are keen to answer questions, the crowd\u00a0is diverse, and local non-for-profit community art initiative SKETCH makes an appearance too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Feral Fine Art, Edmonton. Photo: Summer Sun<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hayley Hoskins, Sketch Gallery, Toronto. Photo: Summer Sun<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rosa Mindreau demonstrates printmaking. Photo: Elena Iourtaeva<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wednesday night\u2019s opening of the first edition of Love Art was a colourful and joyful event. The Heritage Court at Exhibition Place was a great venue and comfortably filled with potential collectors, artists, and, of course, art. It was certainly a varied exhibition and there was a good vibe in the place. Painting, photography, sculpture, glass work, collage. Everything was represented. I found lots I liked in the $1,000 to $8,500 range, but just a few that were less than $200. There was work by several artists I like: Virginia Mak\u2019s soft focus figures; a lovely landscape by Eamon MacMahon, neat images of transformed books by Cara Barer, and both older and newer works (& someday I\u2019m going to buy a piece) by Ronald Boaks.\u00a0I enjoyed myself. And I loved the scent of beeswax from the encaustic works.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Wills Art Warehouse, London, UK. Photo: Summer Sun<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Summer Sun<\/p>\n

Love Art was a lot like the Toronto Outdoor Art Show but without the oppresive heat. Whenever I go to an event like this, I\u2019m reminded that there are lots of people in this city that are interested in art. Maybe some go to galleries on a regular basis, but there are many more who need to be coaxed into feeling that art is for them too. Occasions where artists are approachable, as they are here, help bridge the gap and turn browsers into collectors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Text: Julie McNeill and Ella\u00a0Gorevalov<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 7 \u2013 11, 2014<\/p>\n

Heritage Court, Direct Energy Centre<\/strong><\/p>\n

Occasions where art dealers and artists are approachable, as they are here, help bridge the gap and turn browsers into collectors<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,143,41,134,146,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elena-iourtaeva","category-ella-gorevalov","category-events","category-julie-mcneill","category-summer-sun","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23657"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23684,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23657\/revisions\/23684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}