[Image]Dropped by The Artist Project art fair last night and have to say there wasn't a lot that impressed me. Before I went, I thought "Why is there a fair here at the same time as the Armory Show? All the serious collectors will be in NYC." But as it turns out, there is not a lot of work here for serious collectors. The appeal is to art newbies who want to walk around looking at art with a glass of wine in hand--an experience I'm personally not against. But I would be concerned that new collectors, or simply the curious, going to this event would miss the best that's going on in the Toronto artists community.
Also, though I heard opening night (Thurs) was packed, last night was pretty slow. So I wonder how much the artists are getting back for their booth investment.
Still, I feel obliged to offer a few highlights to check out if you are going. (A few of these arecrossovers from organizer MMPI's One of a Kind Show, which I would say is a better deal for browsers, actually (better craft angle)). Anyway, here's the booths I recommend: Wendy Walgate's crazy ceramics, as always Catherine Telford-Keogh's neon textiles--an agglomerated version of which were a highlight of a recent show at the Ontario Crafts Council Gallery Aleks Bartosik's Dumas-esque portraits -- still needs to develop skill, but appealing at this stage. Ilyana Martinez's cute watercolours were OK Kelly Grace hits a nostalgic nerve for my generation in illustrating old toys -- Woodsies! Yay! Peter Mitchell's works are more illustrative in nature, but made me crack a smile The AWOL Gallery booth had some better stuff The Sketch booth was exuberant and appreciated Selena Wong had a lot of attention for her Royal Art Lodgesque drawings of animal creatures Bogdan Luca has some nice loose paintings styles going on, also will wait to see how this developsAlso perhaps of interest: Min Hyung had lots of critical acclaim for her premiere show at Angell in January; here she's showing in the emerging artists section Heidi Leverty does digital photo parints of multiple "junk" objects that reminded me of Chris Jordan's work Parts Gallery co-owner Ric Santon has a booth here; but I was sad to see none of his stormtrooper portraits, little paintings I always enjoy. There are some other kind of works I haven't seen before, like Nina Sampaleanu's wax works, which are pretty neat technically. Overall, though, I really wouldn't recommend it--even though I know the artists must have worked really hard to get ready. Image of Wendy Walgate's ceramic work from her website
"The Artist Project: A Few Highlights"
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