| Exhibition November 11th to November 29th 2008 Opening Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 (5pm-7pm) |
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KELK
(CANADA)My work focuses on the social and environmental problems resulting from China’s extremely rapid launch into the current world of mechanization and industrialization. I have created ink and watercolour brush paintings reminiscent of traditional Chinese motifs, but instead of concentrating on the hidden beauties of an ideal world, I have used a Chinese cultural visual vocabulary to highlight flaws in the real world of Chinese life today. Smog and pollution envelope the lives of the forgotten poor whose lack of social mobility ties them to drudgery and despair. Corruption further imprisons them - all of this in a China driven by exuberance to prove itself “modern” and prosperous as hosts of the 2008 Olympic Games.
LENGELÉ
(CANADA)Lengelé, belgo-canadian artist, painter and illustrator, was born in the Belgian Congo (Africa), moved to Belgium in the 60's, and graduated from the Academy of Arts in Brussels. He enjoyed a successful career as a commercial artist, winning several awards. For the last 5 years, he has lived and worked in Montreal, as an independent artist. For many years, he was exploring different techniques and new mediums like digital software. Nowadays, he concentrates on acrylic painting and illustration in their most caricatured sense- he is using his vast experience from many disciplines in graphic art to his advantage. Lengelé has taken part in many publications (ex: cartoons in "Cités Nouvelles"), advertisements and packaging all over Europe and North America before beginning painting his own work. Painting, which had been secondary for a number of years, is now becoming a full-time activity. Like some of his favorite painters from the Pop Art movement, he debuted his career in the graphic design business, creating cartoons, ads and packaging. Lengelé is usually characterized as ironic, funny and witty with a very original style.
MANNERS
(UNITED KINGDOM)In her past work, Manners explored the contradictory and raw emotions that can co-exist in the relationships between mothers and their children. Images of her daughter were used as a metaphor to represent past and present emotional realities. This was explored by incorporating a diverse range of media, including collage, paint, screen-print, etching, text and computer manipulation. Her new work is based both on long-term as well as more recent memories, transforming an event or an image to a visual essence beyond the past. She enjoys creating a suggestion of an idea through the use of the layered abstract giving the viewer the freedom to interpret for themselves. The viewer’s interpretation is at least as important as her own emotional connection with one of her paintings. The abstract, an elemental aesthetic of her work, often features as a contrast between the ‘flatness’ of the paint and the three dimensional effect of using wax and paint together, creating a sense of movement. The eye draws across the rhythmic evidence within the surface of her paintings. The works are ethereal palimpsests of memories, dreams and the subconscious.
