Welcome to the big city issue!  We have been in full swing this July and August with our Summer Series and we are not slowing down.  Our citywide issue takes us from Yorkville to Kensington, to the Toronto International Film Festival's headquarters and back.  Jon Claytor's 7th solo with the gallery opens September 11th, with a satellite exhibition at Sublime in the market.  Harold Town's Film Stars will be installed at the new Bell Lightbox and at Ingram Gallery. 

Art and coffee, film and conversation, strolling through the neighbourhoods of Toronto -- join Ingram Gallery as we celebrate the city this September.

First exhibited publicly at Galerie Sans Nom in New Brunswick, Claytor's Easy Evolution is a departure in both form and subject matter. Large three-dimensional freestanding paintings replace traditional canvases, and animals are featured instead of people. The artist equates his work to the rock graffiti he enjoyed deep in the Canadian woods as a child: "where untouched nature and modernity collided just as youth disappeared and experience took its place.  There was graffiti on rocks and bears near by."

"I got obsessed with bears, like dancing bears. I think I started to see myself as one... the animals, especially the bears, are foils. They're still very figurative. They're still about character."

And character is Claytor's specialty. It comes across in the small distortions of his figures. None of his figures are necessarily proportioned correctly, compelling the viewer to unconsciously put things together. This causes an ever-changing emotional quality to the work.

Evolutionary Growth, Mike Landry ~ Telegraph Journal, February 2010, NB

In tandem, a special exhibition of Jon Claytor's work will be hosted at Sublime in Kensington Market (219 Augusta Avenue).  There is so much to love about Toronto. 
A stroll from Yorkville to the market for an espresso and artful conversation -- art in itself!

>> Please click here to view Jon Claytor's new works.





Harold TOWN
Film Stars
11 - 25 September . 2010

Opening reception: Saturday, 11 September, 2-4pm

Harold Town's superb lines and draughting skills are exceedingly evident in his drawings of film stars from the 1971 touring exhibition and book: Silent Stars, Sound Stars, Film Stars.

Town, talented, innovative and ever so relevant to art practice today, has inspired a generation of artists since his passing nearly 20 years ago.  Town's remarkable lines have inspired us to mark the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the season of art ahead with an exhibition of his Film Stars.

"For me, the ultimate attraction of the early movies is the sheer filmic presence of its greatest stars.  ... Where have all the faces gone? The first stars had faces, they all had style. Nowadays, style seems to get in the way of film-making".  So feels Harold Town, noted Canadian artist and movie buff, and to prove his point, he has captured, in 105 superb full page drawings, most of his film deities, their panache, their foibles - in portraits as well as scenes from their most famous movies.  Such mythic personalities as W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, are lovingly and understandingly portrayed by a great artist.  Vincent Price, who supplies the introduction to the book, calls Town "a genius," and this applies not only to his drawings but to Town's accompanying text, a warm discerning memoir of what the "silver screen" and its stars have meant to him - as boy and man.

~ Silent Stars · Sound Stars · Film Stars, 1971 (McClelland & Stewart)