![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rsz_miss_real_silver_watercolour_on_cattle_bones_dimensions_variable_newcomb_detail.jpg\" "\\"rsz_miss_real_silver_watercolour_on_cattle_bones_dimensions_variable_newcomb_detail\\"")
<\/a>Mary Catherine Newcomb, Miss Real Silver, detail, watercolour on cattle bones, dimensions variable<\/p>\nThe dirty table looks like the work table for all of Newcomb’s works in the show. It has the jar of honey and honeycomb for the bees, blue paint for the bones, and clay remains for the frogs. The pot on the table is definitely one of the more interesting thing here, filled with congealed wax, leftover clay, with metal and wire sticking out of it, that produce a fascinating abstracted visual.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, her exhibition as a whole has a fascinating visual to it. The hare skeleton arranged with edible \u2018organs\u2019 made of Plasticine, dried currants, and honeycomb.<\/p>\n Past the hare is the beginning of Gabankova’s exhibit. Two large building facades, portrait paintings, as well as sketches of faces adorn the walls. While Gabankova has certainly proved her skills in rendering a face with paint, her pencil\/charcoal sketches are where the power really is. In one of the Residents section, four works are hung, two paintings on top and two sketches on the bottom. On the paintings the faces are effectively painted, but their rough sketches grab our attention immediately. The sketches are fast, rough, gestural, and powerful. They focus on the face and the expression; the ‘essence of the moment’.<\/p>\n The overall theme of the show is fairly clear. These dissidents have been displaced from their home, just like the nursing home residents. However, while the residents are portrayed in their moment of action, either walking or being fed; the dissidents are grouped together in an incongruent manner. Certainly paintings by no means require a \u2018finished look\u2019, and they do not have to be painted with the same style or colours. In this show each painting is different. One is half finished with conte, one is a black and white face overlaid with bright rainbow-like colours, one is a traditional portraiture with a splash of glossy black around the face, and one is an off-green portrait that shares none of the same palette with the rest. They are not connected in any other way than the theme of the show, depicting people who are displaced and removed from their original place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the corner of the space there is a little sketch of two people walking away accompanied with a quote from Vincent van Gogh about a heavenly journey. This dialectical presentation, along with the quick but powerful sketch, remained most in my head afterwards.<\/p>\n<\/a>Mary Catherine Newcomb, Augury 1, Plasticine, dried currants, and honeycomb,\u00a0dimensions variable<\/p>\n<\/a>Mary Catherine Newcomb,\u00a0Augury \u00a02, detail,\u00a0Plasticine, dried currants, and honeycomb,\u00a0dimensions variable<\/p>\n<\/a>Mary Catherine Newcomb,\u00a0Augury \u00a02, mixed media,\u00a0dimensions variable<\/p>\n<\/a>Maria Gabankova,\u00a0House without Home I, charcoal and encaustic on paper, 64″ x 57″.<\/p>\n<\/a>Maria Gabankova, Dissidents, 2016, acrylic on canvas<\/p>\n<\/a>Maria Gabankova, Resident feeding, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 30″<\/p>\n