Together in Spirit, Dialogue in Image | Fruits of the Garden

Be Contemporary Gallery

October 9 — November 6, 2021
Closing Reception: Saturday, November 6, 1 pm to 4 pm

MAIN GALLERY:

Together in Spirit, Dialogue in Image
Dazaunggee – Paul Shilling / Ted Fullerton

Left: Dazaunggee – Paul Shilling, Right: Ted Fullerton. Photos provided by artists.

Dazaunggee – Paul to Ted – Ted to Dazaunggee – Paul

Dazaunggee – Paul Shilling and Ted Fullerton are the same age and were born in the same month yet come from two very different life experiences. Artist Dazaunggee – Paul Shilling, Chippewa of Rama First Nation was born into an already broken circle, and grew up in a time of severe cultural oppression. Artist Ted Fullerton grew up in Port Credit – Mississauga, Ontario – in a middle class home full of privilege and encouragement. Paul and Ted met in the early nineties and befriended through a mutual respect for each other and their creative work within the arts. After not seeing each other for a number of years they met again by chance in the spring of 2018. Their daylong conversation on and about colonial domination and oppression was open, honest and direct. They spoke of each other’s reality growing up, their current realities and a perspective of their “truth” and shame. As a result of that day they decided to continue the conversation visually, to create a lasting and honest statement of truth to and with each other.

In doing this each artist created and made a visual statement in painting to the other. Neither artist was aware of what was going to be “said” visually. This process would occur as if in an open dialogue and conversation, as it did during their get-together in the spring of 2018. Each visual “statement” was exchanged without each artist previously being aware of what was going to be presented to them resulting in a reciprocal visual response by the other artist. As a result, two pairs of paintings, one by Dazaunggee – Paul the other from Ted and one by Ted and the other from Dazaunggee – Paul meet in truthful discourse and confession with each other.

Addition paintings will be exhibited in this exhibition based on both Dazaunggee – Paul and Teds further creative response to this initiative.

Bios:

Ted Fullerton works in contemporary painting, printmaking and sculpture, and has achieved numerous awards including the Juror’s Award in the CIM Centennial Art Competition and the Boston Printmaker’s Juried Exhibition award. His notable commissions include sculptures for the City of Kitchener and the Davenport Architectural Corp. Ted Fullerton graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1976. In 1993 and 1994, he was artist-in-residence at Cape Dorset and at Canadore College in North Bay. He has exhibited across Canada as well as in England, Australia, Spain and Yugoslavia. Fullerton’s works are in private, corporate and public collections including the Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, BC; Oregon State University, USA; Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, ON; University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON; and Markborough Properties, Halifax, NS.

Dazaunggee – Paul Shilling, “For me, painting is a medium for healing, for celebrating the spirit, and it is a gift. It is an opportunity to explore and understand myself, and my place and relationship within the circle of creation.”

As an aboriginal man, Paul feels the need to shed the image that was taught to him as a child – that he was undesirable, shameful, unworthy. This continual redefinition, the questioning and searching, keeps Paul’s work alive; seeking to shed the old self and invite the new, and ever-changing self. As he expresses himself, he heals himself; the inner voice and the inner eye clear and open for the energy of the image to move through him from “the great house of invention”. This is the manifest vision from the sky world which springs to life in the paintings.

BHCV Project Space:

Fruits of the Garden
Sadko Hadzihasanovic

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Sunday in Oakville Garden, 61” x 76”. Photo provided by artist.

During Global Pandemic our lives shifted in unpredictable ways. We had to reimagine who we are as society and who we are in our personal lives. Being overwhelmed became our constant. In a search for some piece most people started going to the nature seeking refuge from everyday brutality of bad news.

The Idea for this show came from the Andre Gide’s book “Fruits of The Earth. The book is a hymn to the pleasures of the life and explores sight, smell, taste, hearing… All the things Andre Gide almost lost suffering from tuberculosis.

Back to my experience of Pandemic I too was able to reconnect with what nature offers us and to re-establish my place in it. My paintings are kind of Arcadia of modern times. Very much a part of being with family and friends outside, by the lake, in the shadows, among the birds and just watching the nature changing its colours became an everyday must and a meditation of some kind. The being one with nature gave us perspective and strength so much needed in these unprecedented times in our personal history.

“I painted shadow plays and people in the gardens in hope we find new modus operandi for a more sustainable life on this planet.”

Bio:

Sadko Hadzihasanovic studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, Bosnia, earned his MFA at the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia and arrived in Canada in 1993. Since his arrival from Bosnia, Sadko has participated in over sixty exhibitions in public galleries and artist-run centers across Canada. Sadko continues to explore identity, and its cultural and social implications, with an extensive portraiture-based body of work using mixed media and collage, and an array of references to popular culture.

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