Galleries
Head and Shoulders Above the Rest
BY David Balzer July 26, 2007 10:07
As a portraiture show featuring some of Toronto's finest figurative artists, SPIN Gallery's “Head and Shoulders Above the Rest” can seem a bit slim: we only get one piece each by a few participants who are best viewed in the wider context of their respective practices. One such artist is Ben Pinkney, who was just selected as one of the semi-finalists in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition; granted, Pinkney is fabulously talented, and even one of his pieces is quite enough to get that across. The piece is The Butcher at 461 King West, and it's conservative in a good way (i.e., considered, simple in subject matter, reverential towards tradition). The subject's face, as in Pinkney's other paintings, is in close-up (and is, then, Close-ish); the overall tone is magnificently subdued, the outwardly gruff butcher appearing calm, his intimidating face (beard, pockmarks, wrinkles, veins, etc.) totally restrained (or, indeed, respected) by a beautiful grey-blue palette. Other artists here aren't after such technical accuracy, but leave an impression even still: Balint Zsako, whose work, in a career-making coup, recently graced the cover of The New York Times Magazine, provides a bunch of his nice, messy faces on paper; Robert Weir, who recently joined the SPIN stable, makes drawings of beautiful boys and names them after Smiths lyrics; Lisa Iglesias proffers a slight, if amusing, sketch of three famous ladies' mug shots: Paris Hilton's, Tracey Gold's and, in what is surely one of her chicest career moments (see Eyedentical Twins, March 1, 2007), Jane Fonda's.
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1
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