Inside Job: Panel Talks
Panel One: Pierre Dorion, Sara Hartland-Rowe, Maria Hupfield & Rhonda Weppler Panel Two: Mark Bell, Dorian FitzGerald & Trevor Mahovsky
Moderated by John Armstrong

Panel One:
Wednesday January 14, 3 - 5pm Blackwood Gallery, UTM

Panel Two:
Thursday February 12, 12:30 - 2pm Annie Smith Mezzanine, Sheridan

These talks are FREE and open to the public.

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Inside, on view at the Blackwood Gallery from January 14 - March 1, 2015.

Installation view of Inside. (Clockwise)  Mark Bell, Reverse Obsolescence (Deerfield Hall) (2014). Chalk and nail on wall. Variable dimensions; Pierre Dorion, Blackwood II (2014), Oil on linen, 183 x 137 cm; Dorian FitzGerald, Salon, Apartment of Valerian Rybar and Jean-François Daigre, Rue du Bac, Paris (2011 - ), Acrylic and acrylic caulking on canvas mounted on board, 457 x 867 cm. Photography by John Armstrong.
Information

Panel One: Wednesday January 14, 3 - 5pm
Pierre Dorion, Sara Hartland-Rowe, Maria Hupfield & Rhonda Weppler
KN 108, Kaneff Centre
University of Toronto Mississauga (3359 Mississauga Rd., Mississauga)

Panel Two: Thursday February 12, 12:30 - 2pm
Mark Bell, Dorian FitzGerald & Trevor Mahovsky
Annie Smith Arts Centre, Mezzanine
Sheridan College (1430 Trafalgar Road, Oakville)

Both panels will be moderated by guest curator, John Armstrong

 

Over the past sixty years, artists have sought to merge easel painting and its secondary support, the wall, in manifold ways. The gallery or “white cube” has been engaged, questioned, and at times, dramatically altered. Artists involved with the exhibition Inside will present a brief illustrated overview of the development of their work in the exhibition followed by a discussion of how contemporary painters use elements of their studio practice to create site-sensitive wallworks or performances.

Inside includes work by eight artists who use the various technologies and traditions that painting offers to engage the Blackwood Gallery’s exhibition spaces and reflect on the established genre of interior painting. Several of the artists have painted directly on the Blackwood’s walls, while other artists are exhibiting mural-sized or more intimately scaled easel paintings. All of these artists connect painting in its many guises—from illusionistic or schematic tableau to a celebration of paint’s physical nature—with built interior spaces in order to ask us to reconsider painting’s longstanding critical and poetic engagement with the rooms we inhabit.

For more information on the exhibition, please click here.

Artists' Biographies

Mark Bell (born Toronto 1964) completed his undergraduate studies at OCAD University in 1989, and in 2009 he received a Masters degree from Chelsea College of Art in London, UK. A selection of his solo exhibitions in public galleries include the following: Detail, Harbourfront Gallery, Toronto (2007); The Truth About Falling, YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto, Ontario (2006); History Painting, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario (2003), Information Passagegallerie, Künstlerhaus, Vienna (2001). Group exhibitions: More Sad Presentiments, Open Studio, Toronto (2012); Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, The Bear Gallery, London, UK (2009); Copycat, Kenderdine Art Gallery, Saskatoon (1997). He has attended a number of artist residencies in Canada and Europe: Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Republic of Ireland (2006); Pouch Cove, Newfoundland (2002); Galichnick Art Colony, Macedonia. (2002); Atelierhaus des Bundes, Austria (2001). Bell is one of the founding members of the artist collective Painting Disorders. He lives in Toronto where he is represented by General Hardware Contemporary.

 

Pierre Dorion (born Ottawa 1959) completed his Bachelor in Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa in 1981. In 1983 he began his ongoing solo career, marked by an exhibition at the Yarlow-Salzman Gallery, Toronto in 1984. A selection of his solo exhibitions in public galleries include the following: Autoportraits 1990-1994, Centre international d’art contemporain (CIAC), Montreal (1994), Pierre Dorion, Art Gallery at York University, Toronto (1995, touring); Pierre Dorion : Peinture et photographie, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal (2010); Pierre Dorion, Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal (2012, touring). Group exhibitions: Aurora Boréalis, CIAC, Montreal (1984); Anninovanta, Gallleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna (1991); À ciel ouvert : Le Nouveau Pleinairisme, Musée National des beaux-arts du Québec (2012). In 1997, Dorion was awarded the prix Louis-Comtois from the City of Montreal in collaboration with AGAC (Association des galeries d’art contemporain). He lives in Montreal and is represented by Galerie René Blouin in Montreal, Diaz Contemporary in Toronto, and Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.

 

Dorian FitzGerald (born Toronto 1975) completed his Bachelor of Arts in Art and Art History at Sheridan/University of Toronto Mississauga in 2001. A selection of his exhibitions in public galleries include the following: The Painting ProjectGalerie de l’UQAM, Montreal (2013); Quebec and Canadian Art, 1980-2010: New Acquisitions, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (2011); Empire of Dreams: Phenomenology of the Built Environment, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2010); Carte Blanche: Volume 2 – Painting, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2008). FitzGerald lives in Toronto where he is represented by the Clint Roenisch Gallery.

 

Sara Hartland-Rowe (born Kampala, Uganda 1958) completed her Bachelor of Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax in 1990 and her MFA at University of Illinois at Chicago in 1993. A selection of her solo exhibitions in public galleries include the following: Look to the Living, Mount Saint Vincent University Gallery (2012); Spin, Measure, Cut, Ross Creek Centre for the Arts (2008); All things good and pure, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2007); The Prince, Durham Art Gallery (2004); Last Judgement, Dalhousie University Art Gallery (2002); Days Are Where We Live, Museum London (2000). Hartland-Rowe has exhibited across Canada and abroad, and received grants from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism and Culture. She has recently completed a major commission for the Halifax Municipality: Travellers, Dartmouth Bridge Terminus (2014). Hartland-Rowe lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

 

Maria Hupfield (born Parry Sound 1975), a member of Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, completed her Bachelor of Arts in Art and Art History at Sheridan/University of Toronto Mississauga in 1999 and her MFA at York University in 2004. A selection of her solo exhibitions in public galleries include the following: Strange Customs Prevail, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (2011). Group exhibitions: Land, Art, Horizons: Land Reflected in Contemporary Native American Art, North American Native Museum, Zurich (2014); Changing Hands III Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2012); Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture, Vancouver Art Gallery (2012, travelling). In 1995, she founded the community arts program 7th Generation Image Makers, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto. She is a 2014 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painting and Sculpture Grant, the AIM residency at the Bronx Museum and a member of Social Health Performance Club, Panoply Performance Lab, Brooklyn. Hupfield lives in Brooklyn, New York and is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montreal.

 

Denyse Thomasos (born Port of Spain, Trinidad 1964 – died New York City 2012) completed her Bachelor of Arts in Art and Art History at Sheridan/University of Toronto Mississauga in 1987 and her MFA at Yale University in 1989. A selection of her solo exhibitions in public galleries include the following: Kingdom Come, Oakville Galleries (2011); Epistrophe: Wall Paintings by Denyse Thomasos, Foreman Art Gallery, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke (2006, travelling); Hybrid Nations in Swing Space: Wallworks, Art Gallery of Ontario (2005). Group exhibitions: Bird Watching, BRIC Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn (2006); Painters 15,Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art North York (2003); Quiet as it’s Kept, Christine König Galerie, Vienna, Austria (2002). Thomasos has won numerous awards and artist residencies including a New York Foundation for the Arts Award (2008), Bellagio Foundation Residency (2001), Yaddo Residency, Joan Mitchell Award (1998), Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1997), and a PEW Foundation Fellowship (1995). In 2007, she was named the first recipient of the McMillan/Stewart Award, recognizing unique and outstanding contributions made by women artists. Thomasos lived in the East Village, New York City; her estate is represented by Olga Korper Gallery.

 

Rhonda Weppler (born Winnipeg 1972) and Trevor Mahovsky (born Calgary 1969) have worked collaboratively since 2004. Weppler completed her Bachelor of Arts in Art and Art History at Sheridan/University of Toronto Mississauga in 1997. Trevor Mahovsky completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary in 1992. Both artists have MFA degrees from the University of British Columbia, where they met in 1996. Weppler and Mahovsky initially developed their collaborative practice in Vancouver from 2004-2012.

A selection of their solo exhibitions in public galleries include the following: Veneers + Walks, Maclaren Art Centre, Barrie (2014); Weppler and Mahovsky, Acme Project Space, London, UK (2014); The Searchers, Art Gallery of Hamilton (2012). Group exhibitions: Wabi Sabi, Alter Space, San Francisco (2014); Persuasive Visions, Vancouver Art Gallery (2013); It is what it is, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2010). Their project All Night Convenience, commissioned for the 2012 edition of Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, has also travelled to Atlanta’s Flux Night (2013) and Detroit’s DLectricity (2014). Weppler’s work has also been exhibited in Art Hypermarkets: Contesting Consumerism, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena (2004) and Domcile, COCA, Seattle (2004). Mahovsky’s work has been shown in Crossing the Line, Queen’s Museum of Art (2001), and he has written for catalogues and journals such as Artforum and Canadian Art. Residencies include: Acme, London (2014); Artspace, Sydney (2011. They were also the 2014 recipients of the Glenfiddich Prize, for which they completed a residency at Glenfiddich Distillery in Dufftown, Scotland. Their practice continues after relocating to different cities: Mahovsky lives in Toronto, Weppler in San Francisco; they are represented by the Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto.

Photos
Acknowledgements

Presented in partnership with the Sheridan Faculty of Animation, Arts and Design. Generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, with additional support from the Department of Visual Studies (UTM) and Student Housing and Residence Life (UTM).

 

 

 

 

With additional support from:

 

 

Student Housing & Residence Life, University of Toronto Mississauga