A successful debut in New York
Zack Pospieszynski Peak Gallery Toronto
and Sonia Carty Roam Contemporary New York |
Curated by Zack Pospieszynski and Sonia Carty, Branching Out takes as
it’s theme the subject of trees in order to examine how both artists
investigate the unique qualities of their respective mediums and use them
to push the boundaries of their expression. The inherently mutating qualities
of the trees become not only symbols of artistic exploration, but also
reflections of contemporary life. By interweaving the works of these two
artists, this exhibition asks the viewer to make visual comparisons and
explore the boundaries of their own vision and expectations.
Sylvia Safdie is an internationally acclaimed Montréal based artist
who is known equally for her sculptures, drawings, paintings, video works
and installations. Meditating patiently on what a given form implicitly
longs to become, Safdie works with the rawness of the earth’s materials
by incorporating their organic forms into her unique compositions. Recognized
regularly for her artistic achievements through a series of publications,
grants and awards, Sylvia Safdie’s works are housed in prestigious
public and private collections all over the world.
Taken from her Tree Series (2004), the paintings on view show how Safdie
uses nature as an aesthetic model for appropriation. In each work, the
artist captures a unique moment in the trees’ metamorphosis and
the effects of a variety of unknown external elements both natural and
man-made. The ambiguity of these circumstances requires that the viewer
contemplate the specifics surrounding each trees’ uprootedness conceptually
as well as formally. Contemplating the singularity of each image McGill
University’s Chief Curator Irena Murray states: “Safdie’s
Trees are a collection of essences of the tree – its implicit context
within and its separation from, nature; its shortness, or tallness; its
fragility and resilience; the terrible power of the trunk, the fleeting
nature of leaves… These are ‘Everytrees’ and yet, each
is intensely different from the other, each rises unique in the landscape
of the artist’s imagination.” Exposing a deliberate experimentation
with the subtle nuances in a palette of earth-toned pigments, Safdie’s
Trees reveal a painterly quality and a warmth of materials that brings
us closer to nature.
Andrew Wright
New to the New York scene, is Ontario based artist Andrew Wright. His
works explore a number of themes including the nature of representation,
the medium of photography, and the ways in which popular culture disseminates
information. Having received his Master’s in Fine Arts in 1997,
Andrew Wright has since had a number of successful solo exhibitions in
Canada. He is the recipient of over a dozen awards, and his work has been
heralded by Canada’s top critics.
The works exhibited are taken from two series’ entitled Douglas
Firs and Illuminated Landscapes (2002-2003) in which Wright uses a long
exposure camera to photograph trees under intensely dramatic and highly
falsified conditions. The rich detail and exacting execution of these
C-prints provide an intense contrast to Safdie’s works, thrusting
the viewer from nature and reality into a world of illusion and subjective
construction. A deceptively common object has become radically de-naturalized.
Shot in parks, roadsides, and landscaped areas, Wright describes the metamorphosised
trees as “both actors and backdrops in dramas that have already
occurred, or are about to unfold. Removed from their daytime context,
they are at once, studio portraits and landscapes injected with aspects
of the cinematic.”
Using the medium itself, Wright draws our attention to the artificiality
of our society, forcing us to think about the boundaries between fact
and fiction, nature and abstraction.
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