Glimmers of the radiant real
By: curated by Ruth Jones and Sam Mogelonsky
Contributors: Robert McLaughlin Gallery; Art Gallery of Peterborough (Ont.); McIntosh Art Gallery
Publisher: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery; Art Gallery of Peterborough; McIntosh Gallery
Published: 2018
Place of publication: Oshawa, ON; Peterborough, ON; London, ON
Language: eng
Number of pages: 83
ISBN-13: 9781926589978
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Canadian Art; Exhibitions; Catalogs
Description: Working in materials such as gold, glass, foil and plastic, nine artists create works that glimmer, sparkle and shine, revealing far more than their surface value. Radiance, that quality of light so often associated with the marvelous and the modern, is subverted in these works by the relationship between the quality of a surface and what it covers, reflects, or contains: gilded insect wings sketch a house's morbid geography, material treatments upend expectations of form and colour, and dollar-store detritus, sunk in resin, seems to glow behind glass, and more. These glistening, shining surfaces manipulate the viewer's perception of dimension through reflections and refractions, un-forming the object. The combination of familar materials and perceptual distortion, the mirrored illusion of extended space, the fracturing and projection of the viewer's body, and rainbow refractions of white gallery light all work to create an uncertaintly about the realiity of the experience. Underlying the physical perceptions of the works are aesthetic associations ranging from glamour to kitsch, celebration to science.
Notes: "Katie Bethune-Leamen, Broadbent Sisters, Daniel Griffin Hunt, Sanaz Mazinani, Sandy Plotnikoff, Mary Pratt, Cole Swanson, Catherine Telford-Keogh, Xiaojing Yan."

A catalog of the exhibitions held at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, May 12 to September 16, 2018, Art Gallery of Peterborough, October 13, 2018, to January 6, 2019, and at the McIntosh Art Gallery, January 17 to March 16, 2019.