May 2011
STAMPEDE OF ANIMAL-HEARTS
Aleks Bartosik & Natasha Doyon
May 6 – 29, 2011
Vernissage Friday May 6 / 7 – 10pm
Tunes by Big Mac Daddy
Sponsored by CKCU 93.1 FM & Mercury Lounge
This exhibition is a collaboration between Aleks Bartosik and Natasha Doyon. They have collaborated and made individual artworks for STAMPEDE OF ANIMAL-HEARTS that bring together ideas relating to containment, restraint and the economy of physical and mental movement. They look at the experience of bodies in states of adjustment, passion, transformation and adaptation to the limitations that form one’s reality; and invite us, instead,
to wander into their playgrounds of curiosity and dream. – LPM GALLERY
Artist Statement:
The body has always been central to my work, as a compass to navigate through the layers of a physical reality. The vulnerability of the flesh is a bridge between what was and what will be, continuously regenerating itself as it sheds its layers of stories and creates new ones. I am drawn to a suggestive body that lingers between mythology, history, and a temporal body that sleeps in an ocean of possible forms that reflect what is real and imagined.
- NATASHA DOYON
Artist Statement:
I explore the boundaries between the real and the imaginary and investigate one’s ability and willingness to imagine, pretend, dream and suspend disbelief. I am motivated by people; the particularities, delicacies, sensitivities, beauties and obsessions held within relationships between lovers, siblings/twins, friends, family, strangers, or themselves. It is my challenge to invite the viewer to dream through my deliberate narration and my obsession with drawing in painting.
- ALEKS BARTOSIK
ALEKS BARTOSIK:
I am a visual artist currently working from my studio in Toronto, Ontario. I work figuratively and most often large-scale, where I combine drawing elements with painting, performance and installation, and film/video. I explore the boundaries between the real and the imaginary and investigate one’s ability and willingness to imagine, pretend, dream and suspend disbelief. I am interested in our repressed fears and the sense of wonder engendered through curiosity and dream. I am motivated by people; the particularities, delicacies, sensitivities, beauties and obsessions held within relationships between lovers, siblings/twins, friends, strangers, or themselves. I like to observe the visible (and accessible) interactions between people and the situations they are placed in and re-create my own scenarios and my own environments and narrations. It is my challenge to invite the viewer to dream through my deliberate narration and my obsession with drawing in painting.
NATASHA DOYON:
My main practice is as a painter; I paint large-scale figurative works with acrylic and oil. My work is inspired from texts and multiple visuals such as film stills, photographs and paintings. My focus has been drawing upon the body as an archeological site, a vessel that is layered with history, memories and traces of carnal experiences. My previous body of work was working with notions of femininity and identity as a performance by piecing together fictional figures from film stills, pornography and fashion photos. The focus was on the subjects being witnessed as objects in front of a one-way mirror (they are seen but cannot see you) the viewer is the voyeur. The subjects were artifacts that lined the wall of the gallery resembling trophies. The images were based on a poem by D.H. Lawrence titled Snake the poem is about wanting to possess someone and when not succeeding wanting to kill it; whereby the individual is struggling between his education and desire.
I am working with a quote by David Lynch “A distortion or abnormality always makes something happen in the brain. It makes you start looking at human beings in a different way – they start to make you dream.”
