From Russia With Love

From Russia with Love
Drawing/Installation
By Tara Bursey

October 1-31, 2006.
Fly Gallery
1172 Queen St. West
Toronto

From Russia with Love bookwork/multiple can be purchased at Babel Books and Music (123 Ossington Avenue, Toronto) for length of exhibition only.

From Russia with Love is an installation featuring 72 portraits of Russian “mail order brides” drawn from photographs on internet sites. The installation is an extension of the artist’s previous work exploring serial portraiture- yearbook photos, WWII military portraits- and the idea of portraits of this nature serving as “human catalogues.” Using the laborious act of drawing each woman’s likeness by hand, the piece attempts to subvert the idea of these women being catalogued, while alluding to their commodification through their presentation within a storefront installation and bookwork “catalogue” multiple.

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, printmaking and craft, 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, and Propeller Centre for the Arts. Tara’s most recent projects include an artist’s talk entitled “Zines: A Short History of the Underground Publication” and a solo exhibition, White Wash, which employed both found, fabricated and altered institutional garments as a means of addressing the constructive/destructive nature of systems. 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.

Punk 'Til You Puke at Art Metropole

Last weekend I attended the opening party for Punk 'Til You Puke, an exhibition of 70s punk ephemera at Art Metropole. A point of interest is that the show is curated by Will Munro, an artist whose work often boasts a specific interest- and expansive knowledge- of punk culture and history. As someone also very interested in punk art/design/history, this show was a virtual playground of relics, rare pictures, music publications, bookworks and bric-a-brac from the late 70s-early 80s punk scenes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Toronto. Particularily amazing inclusions were several of Black Flag artist and current contemporary fine artist Raymond Pettibons early bookworks, rare photos of classic Toronto punk bands the Viletones, the B-Girls and the Curse, numerous original posters and handbills, and entire volumes of American/British punk publications Sniffin' Glue, Search and Destroy and Slash.

Here is some more official information on the exhibition:

Conceived and curated by music and art world artist/activist Will Munro, Art Metropole is pleased to present PUNK 'TIL YOU PUKE!, an exhibition of '70's punk ephemera selected from recently uncovered production/research material collected by General Idea to produce their "Punk 'Til You Puke!" issue of FILE Megazine (vol. 3, no. 4, fall 1977).*

In the early '70's artists were struggling to have their voices reach larger audiences. Andy Warhol had demonstrated how rock and roll was a viable context, but it was the destructive, chaotic, anti-social theatre of the ridiculous that punk was that gave the new generation - those with plenty of attitude and ideas, who might not have known how to play an instrument - the license to create. The artistic avant-garde's strategic interest in mail-art, zines, correspondence, and postal networking became a viral strategy that punks co-opted to disseminate their message, a process that has infected the cultural landscape eternally.

The "Punk 'Til You Puke!" issue of FILE, explored the art scene/music scene merger. General Idea's editorial states:

In Toronto and New York they fiddled with performance and fled to punk. Art/Rock 'n' Rroll crossover was the original theme of this issue: Throbbing Gristle at the ICA; the Poles at the McLaughlin Gallery; the Dishes and the Talking Heads at A Space; the New York Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center; Talking Heads at the Kitchen; CEAC and the Crash & Burn.
Now every concert is an event. Alan Suicide is a musician, or is he? Michaele Berman is an artist, or is she? Robin Lee Crutchfield is an ----------, or is he? Patti Smith is a poet, or is she?
The sentimentalism of late sixties early seventies essentially surrealistic aesthetic has been replaced by a certain pragmatic anarchy which is now the theme of this issue:

It's cheap it's easy go do it!

PUNK 'TIL YOU PUKE! captures a moment in history when artists were disentangling themselves from the dominant music industry. Produced in this process was a plethora of independent publications, record labels, promotional materials, and live performance venues. This exhibition contains incredible evidence of this counter cultural explosion including the notorious zines Sniffing Glue, Bondage, Slash, Crash and Burn Newsletter, Punk, Search and Destroy. Also included are gig posters from San Francisco, Toronto, London and New York as well as hand written press packages from bands like The Curse, Crime, The Screamers, The Viletones, Throbbing Gristle, The B Girls, The Brats, and Talking Heads, to name a few.

In addition to the archive material, there are relevant books and multiples available for sale, as well as limited re-issues of some of the photo-copied zines displayed in the exhibition.

Art Metropole
788 King Street West 2nd Floor, Toronto, Canada M5V 1N6

T 416.703.4400 F 416.703.4404 info@artmetropole.com www.artmetropole.com

Shop Hours Mon-Fri 11am - 6pm, Sat 12-5pm

www.artmetropole.com

Hot off the press...

Here's a sneak preview of the VERY limited-edition From Russia with Love bookwork multiple that will not only be a part of my window installation at Fly Gallery, but will be sold seperately in conjunction with the show. The bookwork will be on sale through me for the entire month of October while the show is up, as well as at Babel Books and Music, (123 Ossington Ave, north of Queen, Toronto. (416)531-9128) a shop only a few short blocks from the gallery. After October, if supplies last, the bookworks can be purchased through yours truely via this blog, or by email...

The Russia book features reproductions of 28 of the 72 portraits made for the window installation. They are each hand-numbered- printed as a small edition of just 50 books. They will be sold for $6 each. For more information about the exhibition or the bookwork, feel free to email me at cleanteen@hotmail.com

Fibreworks 2006 at Cambridge Galleries

fibreworks 06

Biennial Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Canadian Fibre Art
Selected by Jurors Aggie Beynon, Heidi Overhill and Vessna Perunovich

September 2 - October 15, 2006

Opening Reception and Awards: Saturday, September 9 at 2:30 pm

Featuring artwork by Karina Bergmans, Susan Bidinosti, J. Lynn Campbell, Suzanne Carlsen, Lyn Carter, Trudie Cheng, Charles Gagnon, Lyne Girard, Sonia Haberstich, Philip Hare, Emily Hermant, Kirtley Jarvis, Susan Warner Keene, Jane Kenyon, Arounna Khounnoraj, Tania Love, Conan Masterson, Shelia McMath, Robin E. Muller, Tracy Murray, Emilie O'Brien, Gordana Olujic-Dosic, Anita Payne, Danielle Reddick, Kathryn Ruppert-Dazai, Lois Schklar, Laurie Siblock, Angela Silver, Karen Thiessen, Barbara Todd, Karen Trask, Arlene Turkington, Angelika Werth, Tessa Windt, Lily Yung

Cambridge Galleries are pleased to present the 20th anniversary of Fibreworks. Since 1986, Cambridge Galleries has organized 11 Fibreworks exhibitions in response to the role that textile manufacture played in Cambridge and as a means of developing the Cambridge Galleries' permanent collection of contemporary Canadian fibre art. This year the jury selected 35 artworks from over 400 submissions by artists from across the country. The exhibition acts as a barometer of exciting new developments in the medium and provides a unique opportunity for fibre artists to share their work with a wider community.

Admission is free of charge.

Cambridge Galleries, Queen's Square, 1 North Square, Cambridge, Ontario

Gallery Hours: Mon-Thurs 9:30 am-8:30 pm; Fri & Sat 9:30 am-5:30 pm; Sun 1 - 5 pm

Info: 519.621.0460 or www.cambridgegalleries.ca

Image: Arounna Khounnoraj, Paper Wall Rice Forms, 2005

Book review- Blackstock's Collections

Blackstock's Collections features excerpts from the life's work of artist Gregory L. Blackstock, an autistic who's art involves the creation of meticulously detailed "visual lists" of everyday things. I bought this book a few weeks ago, and found it to be not only a treat visually, but interesting in that it gives us a rare look at the unique gifts and abilities often associated with autism.

The following is an excerpt from the book's inside cover:

MODERN LIFE IS AN EVER-ACCELERATING barrage of people, buildings, vehicles, creatures and things. How much can a curious mind take in? And what can it do with all the data? Gregory L. Blackstock, a retired Seattle pot washer, draws order out of the chaos with a pencil, a black marker and some crayons.
Blackstock is an autistic and an artistic savant. He creates visual lists of everything from wasps to hats to emergency vehicles to noisemakers. In the spirit of the Outsider Art of Henry Darger and Howard Finster, Blackstock makes art that is stirring in its profusion and detail and inspiring in its simple beauty. He has never recieved formal training, yet his renderings clearly and beguilingly show subtle differences and similarities- enabling the viewer to see, for example, the distinctive features of a dolly varden, a Pacific Coast steelhead cutthroat, and fourteen other types of trout.
Each collection is lovingly captured in Blackstock's unique hand with text that reflects facts from his research as well as his passions and preferences. Blackstock's Collection's contains over a hundred examples of his splendidly original taxonomy, offering a unique look inside the mind of a man making sense of his life through art.

Fidget

Fidget is the project I have been dedicating most of my spare time to for the past month. The installation will eventually be comprised of several strands of handmade worry beads (komboloi), modelled after the traditional ones known and used in Greece as a tool for relaxation and meditation.

My intention with Fidget is, as with other works of mine, to address the ways in which we use repetition and repetative acts to desensitize ourselves, and to allude to the constructive and destructive implications of this instinct.

I'll be submiting this piece to a show called Insomnia, which will take place at Red Head Gallery during Toronto's Nuit Blanche festivities. (Saturday, September 30th, sunset to sunrise)

More pictures, and possibly as short statement to come soon...

Upcoming Shows/Events

September 2006- The Business of Art: a panel discussion with guests Lynne Wynick (Wynick/Tuck Gallery), Wil Kucey (le. Gallery), Nicole Collins (Moderator) and myself at Toronto School of Art
October 2006- From Russia With Love (solo) at Fly Gallery, Toronto
October 2006- Fantasy Fashion Show 9 (Gallery 1313 benefit) at Gallery 1313
November 2006- Shadow Box Exhibition (group) at the Textile Museum
November 2006- TSA Alumni Exhibition (group) at TSA Gallery, Toronto
December 2006- Holiday Show and Auction (group) at Bobby Five Gallery, Toronto

www.tsa-art.ca
www.g1313.org
www.textilemuseum.ca
www.bobbyfive.com

From Russia With Love

Here are some additional From Russia With Love images I took a few nights ago. They are neat because they are the the only documentation I've made of the process so far. The lower of the two images is of my source material, exactly as I see it...one of two or three Russian bride websites I haunt regularily for images. The other picture is of the first sixteen-or-so portraits I did, laid out on my floor

similarily to how they will be installed (side by side) in the storefront window. It's funny that from far away- like from across the road from the installation- the subtle drawings will probably just look like dots, evenly spaced out.

I'm actually in the middle of a three-week break from the Russia project because I am tied down to a sculptural project I have to have done by the first week of September. I find that my mind always wanders back to this work, though. I can't wait to start the bookwork aspect of From Russia With Love...seeing a book or zine come together, especially one of substantial size, is always exciting. The bookwork multiple of this project will eventually be for sale through me for about $10 each.

Me, published?

I just recieved word that my "recipe" for record sleeve notebooks will be included in the upcoming book "Making Stuff: An Alternative Craft Anthology." I got the spot through my old friend Vikki in England, who I know from a vintage clothing store I used to work at years ago. The book is due out in October in the UK and November in the US and here, and will be released on London's Black Dog Publishing. It should be available at Pages and David Mirvish Books as well as other new book retailers. Keep an eye out for it this fall!

Check out a preview of Making Stuff on Black Dog's website:
http://www.bdpworld.com/books/list/design/makingstuff/makingstuff.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1904772617/202-0533691-8646239?v=glance&n=266239

Calls for Submission

These two calls for submission came up in my email over the past month or so. Both themes are really provocative, and I intend on submitting work to both shows. I've reprinted both calls, in case anyone else might be interested..

Call For Submissions: Insomnia at the Red Head Gallery

DEADLINE: Postmarked September 8, 2006 ($20 application fee)

LATE DEADLINE: September 15, 2006 ($30 application fee)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

Insomnia at the Red Head Gallery seeks work which explores sleeplessness as a physical, cultural, political or psychological state. Emphasis will be placed on the ephemeral, the multiple and the obsessive. All media will be considered but please keep in mind that we do not have equipment for video, audio or electronics and artists will need to make the necessary arrangements.

EXHIBITION DATES: September 27-October 7, 2006

Insomnia at the Red Head Gallery is part of Nuit Blanche Toronto, September 30 to sunrise on Sunday, October 1. Encounter the city in a unique way and explore Toronto through public art commissions, all-night exhibitions, live performances and creative programs featured throughout the city. This cultural rendezvous opens the doors to hundreds of museums, galleries, institutions and unusual spaces each featuring free art programs all night long. Visit http://livewithculture.ca for more details on Nuit Blanche Toronto.

ENTRY FEE: The entry fee is for Insomnia is $20 (Canadian) for a maximum of two entries per artist. The late deadline entry fee is $30. This fee is non-refundable and must be mailed with the entry. Cheques or money orders should be made payable to: The Red Head Gallery.

Submissions:

1. Send up to two (2) works in any media to the Red Head Gallery by September 8, 2006 (postmarked) with $20 (Canadian), cheque or money order.
2. Include a short biography and artist statement.

3. Include a price list if applicable: the gallery will take a 50% commission on all sales.

4. We do not have the resources for electronic or other media works. Work must be sent ready to install with any necessary equipment.

Works should be sent directly to the gallery. Artists in the Greater Toronto area should pick up their unsold work by no later than November 1, 2006. Artists from outside the Toronto area should include return postage. After November 1, 2006 the Red Head Gallery cannot be held responsible for unclaimed works.

If you would like your work returned, please include a self-addressed package with sufficient return postage. Works must include return packaging and proper postage. The Red Head Gallery is not responsible for lost or damaged material.

Founded in 1991, the Red Head Gallery is one of Canada's most respected artist co-operatives, showcasing a broad range of contemporary visual art by emerging and established artists.

Contact: Mark Schilling, Director

The Red Head Gallery
401 Richmond St. W, Suite 115
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8

416.504.5654 | art@redheadgallery.org

For information on the Red Head Gallery, please visit:

http://www.redheadgallery.org

Call for Submissions: Do Hands Make us Human

Hang Man Gallery

Hands are expressive of many things... Hands can be beautiful or ugly, smooth, rough, wrinkled, gentle, powerful, weak, helpful, hurtful, strong, playful, blunt, seductive and creative. And ultimately our hands make us human. For artists, hands can define both who we are and what we do in our work.

The Hang Man Gallery is calling all artists to consider your hands, the hands of your friends and family and those of strangers. Are they beautiful or ugly? What do they say about a person? How do people who work with their hands feel about them, and is that different from those who don't work with their hands? What do they say about our potential for kindness and cruelty, playfulness or seriousness? How important is touch? How have hands been portrayed historically in art? As an artist, what do your hands mean to you? How do they allow you to connect with the world around you?

We are asking artists to go beyond a straightforward representation of hands to answer some/any of these questions and express your point of view through painting, drawing, photography, mixed media, sculpture - whatever is the best medium for you.

SHOW DATES: September 26th - October 15th

FEE: $30 with a maximum of 3 pieces.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Please drop off your finished work(s), ready for display, on Tuesday, September 5th or Wednesday, September 6th at the Hang Man Gallery (756 Queen St. E near Broadview) anytime between 11am and 5pm. The programming committee will contact artists by September 13th with its decisions.

Additionally, please include the following with your submission:

- Short statement of how the work relates to the theme (maximum 100 words)

- Bio / CV

- Contact information

For more information please call the gallery: 416-465-0302, or contact James MacLean (jmaclean1@rogers.com) or Robyn Drage (info@robyndrage.com), or visit our website:www.artistsnetworkofriverdale.org/hangman/

The Hang Man Gallery is the gallery face of the Artists' Network of Riverdale, a non-profit incorporation that strives to help professional artists become more self-sustaining through their art. As well, we aim to educate and grow enthusiastic art collectors. Lastly, it is our goal to establish South Riverdale as an arts destination.

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)