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With the Olympics arriving in Paris this summer, I can’t help but notice how unequipped this city is to host such an event. I think of the work it takes to balance everyday life; the logistics alone of a Monday-Friday can be trying at times. As I crossed a bridge on my far-too-fast-for-the-everyday civilian Lime ™️ bike, my mind wandered to the people in charge of the Olympics. The insurmountable task of cleaning a portion of the Seine to allow for the swimming portion of the Triathalon to take place in the disease-ridden, shit-filled, public waste waterway sounds a bit more stressful than running out of my Bonne Mama strawberry jam. Strawberry jam and shit-filled waterway is a sentence I hope to write only once, and only ever in this context. Although they have plans to redirect the sewage to a giant reservoir they’re building (still working on it, down to the wire style) in French fashion, they’ll probably blame the weather rather than their engineers if they can’t finish it. Not our fault - ze water is clean - take a sweem. And people will listen. People will swim. I haven’t swam in the Seine once. I’ve swam in the Seine twice. Starling, our friend Elinor, and I all trusted the public advisory statement about the water being clean enough to swim in and spent two afternoons frolicking in King Louis’ Pooey.

Pictured here: Elinor and I replenishing ourselves in centuries of sewage

Where there’s a will there’s a way, though and something tells me no matter how sullied the water, no matter how broken the Metro, no matter how picked the pockets - the Olympics will go ahead with the force of a Lime ™️ bike hitting the waters below the Pont Neuf after being hauled by a wine drunk beach volleyball fan. These thoughts of the Olympics stayed with me while attending the Venice Biennale. The only thing more impressive than corraling a bunch of athletes into one place to compete against one another might be corraling a bunch of artists together into one place to show their latest and greatest. This was the first time I’d been to Venice and the first time I’ve been exposed to this much art in a single weekend. It truly felt like the Olympiad of Art. My brain was in a constant state of processing (I mean the brain is typically in this state, but my brain was attempting to sort through what I had seen, what I was looking at, and what I was about to see in an organized and critical manner) and the sheer quality of the works that I was met with was unbelievable. I had to adjust my perception of art in general. The scale of the installations, venues, and theme (Foreigners Everywhere) were greater than what I had experienced to this point. This wasn’t art in the sense of walking through a museum or gallery, this was art as in it grabs you and controls you at every turn. It felt like the governor had been ripped out and artistic expression was given a wide open road with no speed limit, like the Autobahn but this time on a small, carless bog in Italy. I suppose my perception of art changed during my time in Venice and it again expedited my beliefs towards art being about the message or statement, rather than the form itself.

Buyer/Searcher Beware: Like milk - these posts can spoil. I’ll try to stay up to date so these works stay fresh!

Whatever the case, or use case that this newsletter might hold, I can only hope that it helps expand your knowledge and love of art.

Keeping with the theme of art fairs, I was recently perusing the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair’s website (which runs from July 12-14 at Nathan Phillips Square) and came across a few very interesting pieces from artists that I’d never heard of (like most of the artists I show on here, I’m discovering them as I go). The first piece that jumped out to me was this sculpture by Hamilton artist, Karla Rivera. This piece looks like it started as a Victorian-era vase that had been destroyed, reconstructed, and then handled for a number of years, resulting in the patina’d blue we see on its surfaces. Once again, on my rampage of adoration of formed shapes - the middle of the work has been squeezed and pinched like it was wearing a corset; internal organs shifting around and all that awfulness. Rivera states that through her work she investigates how similar perspectives allow room for the unidentified to be discussed - opening new conversations about our own assumptions that we might not otherwise. I get it, familiar shapes, familiarity to its viewers in the form, easy to discuss with others, new perspectives through discussion.

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“In my work, I explore the path I have taken to search for my inner being. Self-knowledge is a fundamental aspect of my path as an artist. With the help of clay, the employ of different materials, shapes, textures and composition, I try to create a bridge between beliefs, thoughts and experiences. In my work I explore, interpret and capture the different states of mind to which we are exposed to in different stages of our life.
In my sculptures I suggest the materialization of a new form from the use of components that by themselves would not have a meaning and after reconstructing them they become something of their own. Through these sculptural alterations, I hope to suggest that although our perspectives may be the same there is always space for the unidentified. With this, we can open a conversation about our own assumptions, dialogues that we would not have otherwise.” - Taken from artist’s profile on TOAF site

As we move to another booth at the TOAF - we’re greeted by a neo-cubist-esque visage. Business-like and angular in a square world separated by a round moon darkness seems to lend to day and not day to darkness. Orator (an ode to public orators) by Mark Krzepis hailing from Toronto, blends styles and genres. This piece is more musical to me than anything (check his bio below - he’s done some work for real-deal musicians!). Perhaps the moon being so prominent between these two men and the entire painting itself looking like it would fit snuggly around a record as its artwork has created this link for me. Regardless of the intent - it makes me feel a certain way and I love it for that. The two songs that hopped up in my hippocampus were “Moon Over Marin” by the Dead Kennedys and “Hey Moon” by John Maus. Two very different songs in their tempo but similar in the sense that they both have “moon” in their titles… I’ve never made this link between the two of these tracks but I feel as if they are two songs that most accurately describe our relationship with the moon; a state of solitude but companionship with this bright astronomical body. We can be all alone, and the world can be crumbling beneath our feet but the moon is always going to be there lighting up a limited space for us to call our own in that moment. Krzepis, whether he’s tried to do this or not, has painted that picture in my mind. There seem to be two men, one trying to talk, not getting anything out, being watched by a clean-cut figure in the background, standing underneath the moon. Is the clean-cut man there or is he more metaphorical? I feel like this is my fear of public speaking personified in a painting. No matter how badly I might have become suddenly unable to speak or read from my presentation deck during my first big boy meeting out of school at my first REAL job, the moon was always going to show up again to let me try again. What a pal. The surreal nature of the scene is beautiful - the way the blonde guy is blocking the guy in the glasses from getting any sort of sensible piece of speech out and the small sliver of space to escape toward the void gives the viewer the option to either fight the fella with the crew cut or give up the fight and turn to solitude.

*The Orator* Acrylic Gouache, Graphite, and Oil Pastels on Wood Panel 20.32x25.40x2.54 2022

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Mark Krzepis is a Toronto illustrator whose work muddies the line between high and low subject matter. Inspired by literature, music, art history, and the absurd, he draws upon themes of human nature relevant in both fine art and lowbrow illustration. Through a colourful complementary palette and animated shapes, Mark taps into the rich knowledge of traditional illustration. He has illustrated cover art for Toronto artists such as BADBADNOTGOOD and Charlotte Day Wilson, conducted interviews with creatives like Wolfgang Tillmans, and exhibited in art galleries in both Canada and the United States.

For our second to last stop at the TOAF, we’re taking a look at Jørgen Lauritzen’s Buffalo Grand Central Terminal. I perused most of the artist pages on the TOAF site over the span of a few hours. Revisiting some, finding ones I missed, taking different approaches to the works depending on my mood, etc. Lauritzen’s works all stood out to me and the tab stayed open where I would click each day to look at this piece in particular. I have a deep love for the style of Italian Futurism, not necessarily the tenants of the way of life that it suggests, but the art, man oh man that fires me up. Human and machine, humans conquering the natural world. What a hard-ass style of art to come up with. No matter the message, the founder, poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti must have been the most intense and hardheaded artists on the planet. At one point, he wanted to "fill the small, stinking canals with the rubble from the old, collapsing and leprous palaces" to "prepare for the birth of an industrial and militarized Venice, capable of dominating the great Adriatic, a great Italian lake." Although this dream didn’t work out and Venice still has canals (will revisit this later) man and machine have sought to conquer the natural world and have done a very handy job at this, unfortunately. It has made for some beautiful structures, vehicles, and sights but the downside is obviously something we didn’t take into consideration early enough. In this piece, we see a train in the Streamline Moderne international style of the Art Deco (which emerged in the 1930s) pulling into or leaving from Buffalo Grand Central Terminal (a beautiful example of Art Deco architecture). Maybe it’s the smoothness of the painting, the darkness that reminds me of coal, or the illumination behind both subjects of the painting but it feels like steel. It feels like speed and strength - of a quick rest before steaming forward. Nature is not found in this painting, it’s purely machinery and a style of architecture and design so mighty in its combination of form and function that it can stand alone and look like it’s moving at 300 kilometers an hour while it’s standing still.

*The train arriving at the station of Lugo* c. 1916 - Roberto M. Baldessari (1894–1965)

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With a background in illustration and figurative painting I began depicting landscapes of Toronto Harbour to memorialize the places where my father used to work. These began first as small outdoor studies and then progressed to larger studio works in the Regionalist and Ashcan painting traditions. Over time I started to explore industrial places beyond Toronto; typically in various stages of deconstruction and with a greater emphasis on portraying a more archetypal sense of place.

This is the last artist that I wanted to show from the TOAF. Tamara Thompson’s landscapes grabbed my attention. The relatively small scale of them really focuses on the moment in time that the work is trying to convey to its viewer - the light hitting a select group of trees, the sky turning a deep blue and the horizon disappearing into the distance - all really put you in plein-air with the artist. When I look at Thompson’s paintings, the blurred strokes create a slight disorientation that gives them a dream-like quality, as if I’ve seen this exact sight before, either in reality or in my dreams. I was recently shown an amazing A.Y. Jackson by someone close who has a knack for helping me discover a side of Canadian art that I hadn’t known and I immediately thought of this painting from the photo they sent. Both artists, one living and one not so much - have the ability to capture the proportions of space while integrating said dream-like qualities into their landscapes. I like the feeling of being there in the painting but not knowing quite how I’m there - just a familiarity of understanding what the artist is saying is good enough for me.

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