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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nInstallation view of Simone Collins, Crescive<\/em> at Propeller Gallery, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jewelry, animals, children and embryos are popular elements in her art, bringing to mind the phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” that prevailed in 20th-century Berlin Dadaism. This concept emphasizes the commonality and parallelism in all living things. The title Crescive <\/em>is originally coming from Italian and means growth marked by gradual, spontaneous development. In Collins\u2019 works human beings are not superior to other creatures, but coexist with them in creating a new, different ecosystem. In Gem Face Girl Carrying her Pets<\/em> the little girl\u2019s hat and dress suggest a late 18th-century stage, her face is replaced by a hollow gem. She lovingly hugs two rabbits and a chameleon\u2014a rather strange combination of pets. The chameleon here might be a symbol of interchangeability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Simone Collins, Gem Face Girl Carrying her Pets<\/em>, 2020, mixed media on wood panel, 10 x 8 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frances Patella is a photo-based artist, whose canvases in the second room of the gallery also give us a sense of virtually intersecting aesthetics by blending the boundaries between illusion and reality. The gallery\u2019s website explains her unique method, \u201cUsing a carpenter\u2019s plane, Patella shaves off layers of photographs and paint, using the plane as another tool, to reveal the slow passage of time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Installation view of Frances Patella, Plane to See<\/em> at Propeller Gallery, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of her works are related to the woods, controlled burns, and ruins. Mixing and layering those visual elements create a melancholy undertone in her pieces. Burn with Yellow Leaves<\/em> seems to take us back to German romanticism of the nineteenth century, with the burning of fires in the foreground and crumbling arches in the background, the only bystander is a red tailed hawk in a dead tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frances Patella, Burn with Yellow Leaves<\/em>, 2021, mixed media on wood panel, 12 x 12 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, the airplanes, cars and metal structures that appear from time to time in her classically-inspired compositions, remind viewers that these are 21st-century artworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vivian Sun<\/p>\n\n\n\n Images are courtesy of Propeller Gallery <\/p>\n\n\n\n *Exhibition information: Simone Collins, Crescive<\/em><\/a> & Frances Patella, Plane to See<\/em>,<\/a> September 22 – October 10, 2021, Propeller Art Gallery, 30 Abell St, Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Vivian Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n At first sight these two artists seem very different both in their artistic approaches and their methods of creation. However, I recognized surrealistic allusions in both Collins\u2019 and Patella\u2019s exhibited work.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n