Oliver Pauk: Chronos/Synthesis

Solo exhibition presented by Sky Fine Foods in collaboration with J Spot Gallery

Oliver Pauk, Object #143 (left) and Object #145 (right), hand carved high density foam, 2022

Chronos/Synthesis is a hybrid physical-virtual experience:

December 2, 2022 – February 28, 2023
In-Person Opening Reception (all welcome): December 2, 2022, 6:30 pm-8:30 pm with opening remarks at 6:45pm.
Virtual gathering and artist talk; Art Gate VR Platform: December 6, 2022, 3 pm EST

J Spot Gallery, 240 Queen St. E
skyfinefoods.com/chronos-synthesis

Chronos/Synthesis, Oliver Pauk’s inaugural collaboration with Sky Fine Foods, is an accumulation of time and work from the past 5 years. Finely textured forms emerge as attentive explorations of hand and digitally-processed objects, challenging expectations of physical and digital art.

Expanding the pursuits of earlier work Pauk involves an ongoing investigation of the dimensionality between the digital, abstraction, and representation. In his newest works, an additional, self-referential approach emerges via hand-carving methods on soft woods and high-density foam. This progression replicates visual elements and patterns often seen in computer-aided fabrication processes. The resulting presentation is a collection of 3D printed, CNC milled, and hand carved sculptures, alongside video and Augmented Reality (AR) objects.

Oliver Pauk, Object #138, hand carved white cedar, 2022

Pauk’s processes involve a patient consideration of time, through which artworks communicate with themselves. Evolving between mediums the works move through several recursive stages; translating digital photographs into videos or physical objects, or 3d scanning hand carved objects into video and AR formats, acting to blur the divisions between the physical and the digital, the tangible and the intangible.

The newer hand carved sculptures demonstrate a technical precision that Pauk followers have grown to expect. Each has been created in an exploratory and extemporized manner that welcomes unexpected extrapolations of the artist’s aesthetic decisions. Pursuing iteratives, Pauk oscillates fluidly between hand and mechanical processes, yielding impromptu abstractions. Each work becomes a composition of intention and improvisation; unexpected forms and seductive material textures combine into a visual trickery that eludes categorisation.

Oliver Pauk, Object #90, digital print on lycra, 2017

About the Artist

Oliver Pauk is based near Toronto and holds an Honours BA in Environmental Economics from the University of Toronto. His work is held in private collections across Canada, and has been featured in notable exhibitions at both national and international venues including: Volta 12 Basel; Mercer Union; Art Gallery of Ontario; Angell Gallery; Patrick Mikhail Gallery Gardiner Museum; Art Gallery of Mississauga; Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival; Drake Hotel Toronto; Strychnin Gallery Berlin; and Gallery 44.

He is the Founder and Director of Akin in Toronto. Reviews and critical discourses of his work have appeared in the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Canadian Art Online, TOM* Magazine, TVO’s The Agenda, CBC Radio, Art F City, Ion Magazine. He is the recipient of the 2014 Award of Excellence in Exhibitions from the Ontario Museum Association.

Oliver Pauk’s evocative practice centers around photographic, sculptural, and video-based elements that provoke boundaries between physical and digital realities, while exploring the ways in which materials and objects can be translated between realms.

Oliver Pauk, Object #38, (still from) HD looped video, 1:00, 1/3, 2016

About J Spot Gallery

The J Spot is a Transitory Radical Space Invasion Window Project: located at Angst Salon, 240 Queen St. East Tkaronto /Toronto.

About Sky Fine Foods

Sky Fine Foods is an experimental gallery and rejuvenating experience, concerned with ecologies, inclusion, simulation, screens and realities. Representing international contemporary artists with new ideas and new methods, Sky Fine Foods specifically focuses on new media, digitally informed practices, and digital processes.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the local lands as the traditional territories of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples inhabited and cared for this land, and continue to do so today. The acknowledgement of land rights is not enough. We support landback claims, and encourage raising awareness, funds, and sharing privileges with Indigenous-led organizations, schools and communities, both locally in our region, and beyond.

Sky Fine Foods
www.skyfinefoods.com
Email: info@skyfinefoods.com

J Spot Gallery
240 Queen St. East, Toronto

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@oliverpauk
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Accessibility:
J Spot Gallery is partially accessible. For more information, please contact info@skyfinefoods.com