Letter from Toronto.

February 1998

Last season's successes were quiet for the most part - even if their intentions might have been otherwise. Taking low-budget hype to its extreme, the Yellowhat collective used "teasers" such as store-front displays, posters and tiny brushed-metal pill-box invitations to announce that "Paradiso" was coming soon. As it turned out, "Paradiso" (Nov 16-Dec 6) was an exhibition of site-specific installations in one floor of an unfinished warehouse-turned-condominium complex overlooking Kensington Market (Toronto's bohemian headquarters). This ambitious undertaking presented work by David Joron, Yvonne Koo, Natalie Majaba Waldburger and Michele White, among others. One of the more successful installations was White's, comprising six paintings butted up against one another, standing opposite a white swing. However, despite considerable unevenness in much of the work and the site's occasional disarray, I was reminded that Toronto has an energetic and promising community of artists organizing themselves outside the gallery system.

John Dickson's show at the Robert Birch Gallery (closing early November) was a rainy day discovery well worth my trip across town. "Ten small nautical disasters" included several wall-mounted bottles filled with water, each containing a tiny ship and the odd pile of sand. One larger piece involved a glass vessel full of water, mounted on a metal pedestal with a miniature submarine floating on top. I was encouraged to use the foot pump at the bottom which, when pressed repeatedly, caused the submarine to sink slowly to the bottom. At the back of the gallery was the show's anchor: a small print of a ship inside a bottle-like form, executed by the artist when he was seven years old, living in Portsmouth, England. (Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Canada by ship.) Dickson frequently uses water in his work but here it is imbued with narrative. I enjoyed this show for creating adventure with such common materials.

Several examples of sumptuous painting were in evidence during my end-of-97 excursions: Ron Shuebrook at Olga Korper; Ron Martin's retrospective at Christopher Cutts; James Lahey at Wynick/Tuck and Wanda Koop at Leo Kamen. Renowned painter Paterson Ewen turned up a few times around Ontario: the MacDonald Stewart Art Centre is showing work that constituted Ewen's blockbuster show at the AGO last year (to Jan 11); it will be on view at Oakville Galleries (to Mar 15). Recent work extending beyond Ewen's cosmological and weather motifs will be at Olga Korper Gallery (to Feb 28) and the Art Gallery of North York (to Mar 1).