![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/SB-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nArt Toronto pop-up show at the Stephen Bulger Gallery with Max Dean\u2019s animatronic figures. <\/a>Photo courtesy: Stephen Bulger Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n My first booth stop was at the Tr\u00e9panierBaer gallery from Calgary. In the centre of the space hung the ephemeral, almost invisible sculpture Dynamo <\/em>by <\/a>Sarah Stevenson. A delicate interweaving of wire and thread, it floats like a computer-generated hologram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarah Stevenson, Dynamo (Sculpture and Drawing), 2020, thread, wire and lead, 24×13.5×13.5 inches; ink and graphite on paper, 23.5×19.75 inches. Photo courtesy: Tr\u00e9panierBaer<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the back wall were four panels by St\u00e9phane La Rue. At first glance, they appeared as identical, metallic squares, but I soon realized that the edges were all different. As I got closer, I saw that these are carefully crafted wood and aluminum sculptures. The surfaces are sanded by hand. As I moved around the space, the light caught the horizontal and vertical lines which have a subtle waviness akin to painted brush-marks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n St\u00e9phane La Rue, Open End, 2020, aluminum and wood, 66 x 66 x 283.3 cm . Photo: Mikael Sandblom<\/p>\n\n\n\n Around the corner, I found the Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois Ouellette Art Contemporain from Montreal, which presented a show curated around the theme of manipulated nature. I was fascinated by Marie-Jeanne Musiol\u2019s black and white photographs that were generated not with a camera but with plant materials, photographic paper and just a bit of high voltage. These \u2018plant auras\u2019 look like eerie nebula or strange deep-water lifeforms. Next to these hung a drawing by Ed Pien. Invasive Species<\/em> is an abstract drawing that does not depict, but rather was inspired by plants and insects observed in the artist\u2019s garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Marie-Jeanne Musiol, N\u00e9buleuses v\u00e9g\u00e9tales no 4 (Vigne), 2018, electromagnetic capture on silver gelatin negative, archival pigment print, 32 1\/8 x 24 1\/8 x \u00be inches. Photo courtesy: Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois Ouellette Art Contemporain<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ed Pien, Invasive Species: Hanging Garden, 2020, Ink on 9-panelled paper, 35 \u00bc\u201d x 27 “. Photo courtesy: Pierre-Fran\u00e7ois Ouellette Art Contemporain<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next booth belonged to WAAP: Wil Aballe Art Projects from Vancouver. WAAP mounted a show that addressed the question \u201cwhat\u2019s next?\u201d The art world, (along with rest of the world!) is in a state of flux. How does art respond to the pandemic, environmental crisis and social inequities? Here was a survey of responses ranging from contemplative abstraction to political protest art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n WAAP Pop-Up Booth. Photo courtesy: Stephen Bulger Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate Metten represents the contemplative end of the curatorial axis with her The Thinking Eye<\/em> paintings that play with our sense of perception of surface and depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate Metten, The Thinking Eye 3, 2019, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches. Photo courtesy: WAAP<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julia Rose Sutherland confronts us with sharp political messages Refund the Communities<\/em>, Defund the Police<\/em>, and Fuck the Police<\/em>. Dedicated to Rodney Levi, an indigenous man shot by the RCMP, these stark words have been rendered in carefully woven porcupine quillwork, a decorative craft that pre-dates colonialism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Julia Rose Sutherland Rest in Peace, Rodney Levi, 2020, Gawiei \/ Porcupine quillwork (Embroidery) on paper, 12 x 16 inches each of 3 parts. Photo courtesy: WAAP<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next was the Michael Gibson Gallery <\/a>from London, Ontario. In addition to several fascinating Greg Curnoe pieces, I was taken by the work of Hans Wendt and Jonathan Forrest. Hung side by side, paintings by these two artists at first appeared to be \u2018typical\u2019 colour field paintings. As I got closer, Wendt\u2019s work looked like torn pieces of coloured paper; closer still and I realized this was an illusion. They are tromp-l\u2019oeil paintings meticulously executed in watercolour. Forrest\u2019s painting also benefits from close inspection. Thin bands of bright colour protrude from the surface. These relief elements provide a clue to the artist\u2019s process: the paint has been applied with a squeegee. The undulating shimmering effect on the surface is due to variations in the thickness of the paint caused by shifts in pressure and the raised linear elements are where the paint has spilled around the edges. Although very different, both their methods are gutsy: neither one allows for do-overs. You can\u2019t cover anything up in water colour, and there\u2019s only one chance to get it right with the squeegee technique!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Installation view of Michael Gibson Gallery\u2019s booth with Hans Wendt, Res Tres, 2020, watercolour on paper, 52 1\/2 x 37 1\/4 inches (L) and Jonathan Forrest, Into The Blue, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 48 inches (R). Photo: Mikael Sandblom<\/p>\n\n\n\n I moved on to Stephen Bulger\u2019s exhibition: an impressive presentation of historical and contemporary photography. I will only mention two that made a special impression on me. First was Adam Magyar\u2019s Urban Flow 316, Hong Kong<\/em>, a long, horizontal photo of a walking crowd. The background is blurred into long horizontal stripes and some elements are oddly distorted. Magyar creates his own equipment to generate his images. In this case, he has repurposed a flat-bed scanner into a \u2018slit-scan\u2019 device. What you see is what has passed through a one pixel wide camera frame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Adam Magyar, Urban Flow 316, Hong Kong, 2007 (above) and detail. Photo courtesy: Stephen Bulger Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joseph Hartman was represented by a beautiful photograph of rounded granite shoals along the Georgian Bay shore. I recalled recently seeing very similar landscapes in John Hartman\u2019s new paintings. I learned that the painter and photographer are related. The painter (John) is the father of the photographer (Joseph) and they share a love for the same landscape!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n