Galleries
Mittenfists
BY David Balzer August 16, 2007 09:08
Magic Pony has a teeny-tiny exhibition space, to which their "Mittenfists" group show is perfectly suited. It's surprising, in fact, to see so many effective small works all together; the three artists here are young, their offerings like thumbnails – promises of more excellent, more fleshed-out work to come. Andrew Wilson's resin paintings are perhaps most remarkable (I can't wait to see larger format stuff, if/when he's got it); "paintings" may not even be the best word for them, as they combine drawing and collage, coming off like embalmed sculptures, pop-up books or dioramas, their dozens of resin layers standing up very well to close inspection (the image printed here doesn't come close to doing them justice). Wilson makes sci-fi landscapes that look equally influenced by de Chirico and, say, He-Man's Eternia; similarly, his palette, with its pale yellows, purples and blue-greens and blue-greys, seems inspired both by Surrealism and by vintage t-shirts or '80s plastic toys. Melinda Josie goes even further into nostalgia, overdosing on kiddie whimsy with her foxes, mushroom houses, bunnies and birds. The predictable choice of subject matter can't erase Josie's talent: she's an adept watercolourist whose tastes are bound to evolve. Finally, Team Macho's Jacob Whibley does clever collages out of paper ephemera that sometimes date back to the 1800s; his reference points are Bauhaus and Kurt Schwitters, and his works, including his collection of weird wooden blocks, actually seem better the littler they are.
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1
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