Opening Reception: Friday, February 15, 6:00 – 8:00pm
On display until Saturday, March 16, 5:00pm

Alison Judd
Even the continents have no place but earth
Main Gallery

The title of this exhibition is borrowed from a poem by Canadian poet and philosopher Jan Zwicky, The Geology of Norway, which explores the discrepancy between logical language and the ineffable, how we struggle to find and express meaning. These tensions are reflected in Judd’s affinity for the factual: collecting scientific imagery, maps, charts, and geological illustrations, all the while mining for poetry in the language of scientific description. She is particularly compelled by how such representations can strip away emotional and relational complexity, and how metaphor and materiality can restore a nuanced understanding to what is and is not.

The installation of the contiguous prints and paper sculptures disrupt scale, develop new relationships, and facilitate a metamorphosis of materials.

Sometimes the movement of the earth is evident in large catastrophic events, but we must not forget it is always moving, small imperceptible shifts under our feet. The scale of the shift, the crack, the fracture: does it go unnoticed or does it take your feet out from under you?

For more information about Alison Judd’s exhibition, please click here.

Fatima Garzan
Borderless
George Gilmour Members’ Gallery

Fatima Garzan’s multidisciplinary art practice includes painting, printmaking, and site-specific installations. Through these various media, she explores pattern and abstraction as it exists within various cultures. Having trained in both Iran and Canada, she strives to mix influences from both eastern and western cultures, while investigating ornamental and modern design in her work. She combines decorative and geometric patterns found in Persian art and modifies them towards abstraction. This experimentation and deep engagement with various materials allows her to push her ideas forward and evolve her visual vocabulary.

In her art, Garzan uses thread to stitch papers together. The thread represents human connection. Some threads are intertwined with each other and others are cut off and knotted again, heading in a different direction. The act of stitching signifies the experience of migration, time, distance, memory and absence, which is shaped by an increasingly globalized world.

For more information about Fatima Garzan’s exhibition, please click here.

Varied Editions Featured Artist: Jeannette Nguyen
Open Studio Member’s Online Gallery

An initiative of Open Studio’s Membership Committee, this online art gallery showcases the work of Open Studio members on a rotating basis. Check out our social media channels for upcoming posts and look out for the hashtag: #VariedEditions #OpenStudio. This month we will be posting work by Jeannette Nguyen.

• Instagram: openstudio_toronto
• Facebook: /OpenStudioPrintmakingCentre/
• Twitter: openstudioTO

Open Studio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto, the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Open Studio also acknowledges the generous support of its members and numerous foundations, corporations and individuals.

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