Next Show: Square Foot 2006

From Russia with Love

Here are a few newer drawings from the From Russia with Love series I've been working on for the past few months. I have completed 30 drawings so far, and will need to have 72 finished
to fill the storefront space I'll be exhibiting them in.

Each portrait is of a Russian "Mail Order Bride," as drawn from internet websites- two in particular which deal in "matchmaking" American and European men with predominately Russian and Asian women. I started this project after I saw a startling fashion feature in, of all places, Vice Magazine, featuring "Mail Order Brides" modelling their own clothing. Accompanying each photo was a short interview with each girl about what their professions and what they do for fun, etc. The common denominator between these girls, all but one in their early twenties, was their utter FIXATION on finding a man to marry. Their tone, in some cases, was rather shocking...as one girl put it, "Russian women know how to sacrifice and how to serve..." or something along those lines. As women, we can all understand this to some degree...but any contemporary western woman would find the frankness of such a STEPFORD-ian statement unsettling.

Speaking of which, as I drew my first portrait of this series (not knowing where I was really going with the idea), I was reminded of that infamous scene in the Stepford Wives when Katharine Ross' portrait was drawn by an "artist" in Stepford's Men's Club- all the while not knowing that it was a part of a study to build her subservient human-robot replacement. It was funny how unconciously, my drawing style and composition seemed to mimic the dreamy, yet subtly malevolent quality of a lot of illustration from the early 1970's..and more specifically the drawing of Katharine Ross in that film.

Previous work of mine has involved the serial portrait- yearbook portraits and soldiers portraits in WWII-era printed matter in particular. One way to look at portraits of this nature is that they are almost like human catalogues. The concept of the "human catologue" certainly rings true in the case of websites cataloguing foreign women as a hot commodity for men from more affluent countries. By drawing these portraits, I am attempting to subvert the idea of these women as being a part of a human catalogue, while returning to the idea of their commodification through their presentation within the context of a storefront installation and a bookwork "catalogue" multiple.

Affordable White Wash work for sale

Well, the White Wash show has been taken down, and is now over and done with. Millions of thank-yous go out to Rob, Bre, Giselle, and Dave of Bobbyfive for their generous help with the show...not to mention their kindness and enthusiasm. I look very forward to showing again at Bobbyfive, in their Holiday Show in December.

There are two multiples in particular from the show that I still have plenty of for sale, which are really quite neat and VERY affordable. The first is the White Wash pin set/multiple (pictured, bottom), which includes a White Wash mailer (each multiple's mailer has the image of a different US WWII Airman featured as a part of my installation piece Formation) and two UNCLEAN/IMPERFECT pins. These can be bought through me for $5 each. Secondly, I am selling sets of hand-carved UNCLEAN/IMPERFECT soap (pictured, top). Sets of two can be bought for $25 each. Orders and inquiries can be directed to me via email at cleanteen@hotmail.com.

Upcoming Shows

August 2006- Square Foot 2006 (group) at AWOL Gallery, Toronto
October 2006- From Russia With Love (solo) at Fly Gallery, Toronto
November 2006- Shadow Box Exhibition (group) at the Textile Museum
December 2006- Holiday Show and Auction (group) at Bobbyfive Gallery

www.awolgallery.com
www.textilemuseum.ca
www.bobbyfive.com

Wing Studies

These Wing Studies, as well as the Web Drawings posted previously, are currently in an exhibition of class work at TSA called THE WILD. The show looks great, and consists of work by 5 or 6 students all working under the blanket theme of Wild/Wildlife, both real and fantastical. Also on display is a Bestiary (an illustrated alphabet) we produced as a group.

The Wings pictured are size-as "specimens" of bird wings made out of different colours of onion skin. From the top, they are titled Wing Study- Hummingbird, Wing Study- Turtle Dove and Wing Study- Brewer's Sparrow. Unfortunately, the scan quality isn't fantastic, so you aren't really getting a sense of their striking texture or colour here. For instance, the Brewer's Sparrow detail on the left is actually a brilliant lemon yellow with pale orange. I did these, and the web drawings, to illustrate the various examples of natural structure and order within nature.

Web Drawings

Bookworks & Zines

I never really thought to document my zines and bookworks until recently. Here is a small sampling of recent ones: TEA BAG (Sept-Dec 2004), CAHIER (Apr-May 2005) and EL CORAZON (Sept-Nov 2005). I typically sell these at annual zine fairs for 3-4 dollars each, as well as give them away or trade them to friends and relatives. It's been a while since I've done one...maybe I'll try to pop one off just for fun within the next few weeks. I have a fairly elaborate one planned that will be produced in conjunction with my From Russia With Love installation in October, which should be pretty neat...
Zines have been a huge part of my life since my early teens....I would have never guessed that 10 years after I made my first one, I'd be conducting a talk about them at an art college, and exhibiting one in an art gallery. Crazy. It is sad that zines are a bit of an oddity within the art world...when I did my talk about the history of zines, very few people outside of faculty had ever heard of them.
Click on the bookwork images for a closer look...

REVIEW- Heloise Audy and Julie Flaubert

HELOISE AUDY & JUDY FLAUBERT- The Hive-Dress (La robe-ruche)@ A Space Gallery. April 28-June 3, 2006.

The Hive-Dress is a mixed media installation by Quebec artists Heloise Audy and Julie Flaubert, both known for site-specific work that addresses the body and issues of space, memory and language using both high and low technologies.

The "dress," a structure comprised of swatches of fabric Audy and Flaubert collected in the factories of Montreal's garment district, poignantly articulates both the internal and external plight of the seamstress. Within the coccoon-like fabric hive, one can read handwritten tags documenting the innermost thoughts of hundreds of garment workers, ranging from the profound ("Respect for each of our sisters...," "...the journey is long.") to the everyday ("What should I make him for dinner?"). The collected "reveries," written in each woman's own hand and native language, beautifully articulates the universality of the workday, where behind every action lies a dream or invisible thought; where the physical world and the sublime converge.

Heloise and Flaubert's Hive-Dress paints a poignant picture of the world of seamstress, and serves as a monument to not only the unseen worker, but millions of fleeting thoughts, held close, yet left unsaid.

WHITE WASH opening

WHITE WASH installation pictures

Here are some pictures taken directly after the White Wash installation. I'm pretty happy with the way things panned out...the shorts really stand out. I received tons of kind words and encouragement during the install. Now I have to worry about the REALLY stressful part of exhibiting...the dreaded OPENING. More pictures to come...














Pictured: Top- Save Me From What I Want (2005), Compulsion Soap (2005/06) Centre- Formation (2005), Save Me From What I Want (2005) Bottom- Formation (2005)

Upcoming shows

June 2006- White Wash (solo) at Bobby Five Gallery, Toronto
June 2006- The Wild (group) at TSA Gallery, Toronto School of Art, Toronto
August 2006- Square Foot 2006 (group) at AWOL Gallery, Toronto
October 2006- From Russia With Love (solo storefront installation) at Fly Gallery, Toronto

I'm keeping my fingers crossed on two other shows I've proposed/applied for this year. I'll keep everyone posted if anything else comes up..

http://www.bobbyfive.com
http://www.awolgallery.com
http://www.tsa-art.ca

From Russia With Love

This drawing is from a series I started in March titled From Russia With Love. It will eventually involve approximately 75 ink portraits of Russian Mail Order Brides, all drawn from internet sites. I am also planning on making a corresponding "catalogue" bookwork multiple, which will include selections from the series. If all goes as planned, both the bookwork and the drawing series will be exhibited together as a storefront installation at Fly Gallery for the month of October. I've finished 16 portraits so far, and now that I'm finished all the prep work for the White Wash exhibit, I'm finally free to continue full steam ahead with the rest of them...

Some of my earliest work involved serial portraits (yearbook photos), so it's funny that I'm revisiting familiar territory with these drawings. As the work progresses, I'll post more sample drawings, and provide a bit more of an explanation about the concept...

REVIEWS- Shary Boyle and AGO Wallworks

The following reviews were originally written by yours truely for Flack, an online art review zine. Both shows are about to close, so hurry over to see them before they're gone!

WALLWORKS: Sol Lewitt, C.A. Swintak, Lawrence Weiner, Denyse Thomasos, Raymond Pettibon and Chris Ballantyre @ the Art Gallery of Ontario. Until June 1st.
Currently on display are the first of 15 Swing Space installations by contemporary artists showing at the very much in-progress AGO over a two year period.
Hidden away in a remote little room were the contributions of Raymond Pettibon and Chris Ballantyre. Pettibon's piece- one of his large scale wave paintings- was lyrically (no pun intended) executed with his usual text inclusions: references ranging from literature to Gillette razor ads, professional surfers from the 1960's to the artist's own mother. The piece however suffers from the small space it is situated in. It would have been interesting to see the product of Pettibon's mad hand spread out in a larger space along side the exhibition's more "formal" wall works, rather than screaming out all over the baseboards, from a space no larger than a nursery room.
Speaking of which, a nursery room is exactly what Chris Ballantyre's minimal, pastel-hued depiction of partially-submerged houses surrounded by still floodwater evokes. This is not to say that his contribution was without it's merits; particularily a cool aura of mystery and subtle malevolence- like the calm AFTER the storm.
In the large room situated next to the gift shop, Lawrence Weiner's text piece is brutally upstaged by the work of C.A. Swintak and Denyse Thomasos (Pictured: Hybrid Nations- detail, 2005). Swintak's elaborate assemblage around an archway is a flamboyant, in-your-face pisstake on classical architecture, entirely constructed out of the residue of the artist's everyday life. Dirty laundry and plates, high heels, soiled napkins, belts, bedding, nightgowns, cans of Old Milwaukee, even the artist's own furniture are included in this clever installation, which lies somewhere between Robert Rauschenberg and Parkdale yardsale. Denyse Thomasos' staggering work, a huge wall painting combining computer-generated architectural renderings with loose, though very deliberate painted depictions of primitive architectural forms, stuns. Breathtaking in it's technicality and scale while appearing almost effortlessly executed, Thomasos' work walks, and questions, the often fine line between order and chaos.

LACE FIGURES: Shary Boyle @ the Power Plant. March 25-May 28, 2006.
Lace Figures is the result of Shary Boyle's larest project- two years of studying and learning the delicate art of porcelain lace draping. The process involves coating lace in a layer of liquid porcelain, which is then applied to an unfired porcelain base. When fired, the lace disintegrates and the coating remains intact, leaving a highly detailed, delicate impression of the lace's patterns.
In the vein of previous work, Boyle's figures are an all-star cast of her signature anti-heroines, who weave a dark fable as tangled and alluring as the details on their elaborate gowns. Gaping wounds take the form of lush red roses and pleated lace collars; debutantes don bruises, bulging veins and suicide scars; two-headed brides play tug-of-war; dress bustles and details blind, mute and entangle their dewy-eyed ceramic models. The figures articulate a range of emotions- from helplessness to defiance to pride- yet are all entirely unapologetic for their vulnerability.
Part of Boyle's gift is her ability to present us with a side of ourselves we'd rather not acknowledge. Her Lace Figures make a little part of us stars in our own fairy tale in a land far away from touched-up, sanitized womanhood; in a story that celebrates the inherent beauty in darkness. (Pictured: Lace Figures- detail, 2005)

Shary Boyle at Open Studio

Artist talk by Open Studio visiting artist Shary Boyle, Wednesday, May 24 @ 7pm at Open Studio.

Shary Boyle will present a free illustrated talk in conjunction with her current visiting artist exhibition at Open Studio, which continues to May 27. Boyle is a multimedia artist based in Toronto who works concurrently in drawing, painting, sculpture and performance. During her artist residency at Open Studio, she produced a series of etchings with aquatint that continue her ongoing investigations surrounding issues of identity, mythology, sexuality and dysfunction.

For more images of Shary's work, as well as information on upcoming performances, residencies and exhibitions, check out her website in my links section...

Open Studio
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto, Ontario
(416)504-8238
www.openstudio.on.ca

WHITE WASH show

WHITE WASH
Tara Bursey

June 3rd-June 30th, 2006.
Reception: Saturday, June 3rd, 8-11pm.
Artist will be in attendance.

Bobby Five Gallery
1239 Queen Street West
Suite #202
(416) 538-6528
www.bobbyfive.com

Gallery Hours:
Monday-Saturday: 12-8pm

WHITE WASH is an exhibition of sculptural work which employs garments, both found and fabricated, as a way of addressing the constructive/destructive nature of systems. Military issue undergarments, straightjackets, and lingerie are used to allude to ritual activity, and the ways in which systems and repetition are used to depersonalize and desensitize within both domestic and institutional realms.

BIOGRAPHY
Tara Bursey is a recent graduate of the Toronto School of Art’s diploma program, and a former student at Ontario College of Art and Design. An artist whose practice encompasses sculpture and installation as well as drawing and printmaking, Tara’s work is characterized by its ethereal quality, and an often obsessive use of repetition, pattern and delicate sculptural materials such as eggshells, garlic skin, found garments and paper. During her studies at the Toronto School of Art, Tara was the recipient of TSA’s Barbara Barrett Scholarship (2004) and Matthew David Stein Scholarship (2005). In the past two years, she has exhibited extensively throughout the city in such diverse venues as Open Studio, MOCCA, Eastern Front Gallery, Fly Gallery, Propeller Centre for the Arts, and most recently, conducted an artist’s talk entitled “Zines: A Short History of the Underground Publication” at TSA. In addition to her work as a fine artist, Tara also operates actively within Toronto’s independent music and small-press communities as a DJ, illustrator, designer and writer. She was born and raised in Toronto, Canada.