In the following text Nathan shares a significant part of his career as painter:

“I have been painting off and on for 15 years. I started in Barrie, Ontario in 1995/1996 when I had a small live-in studio, and I was doing mostly portraits and landscapes. And it wasn’t until a year or two later when I discovered Postwar American art. A friend of mine gave me the book “Jackson Pollock: An American Saga”. After having read it I was hooked! I wanted to read more about all the artists of that era like Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko etc.

Those artists really inspired me, and I noticed that my painting style was starting to flow a little more loosely, and that the sizes of my canvases were getting larger. Yet, a lot of people have told me that they can tell my paintings apart from a lot of other abstract or colour field painters by the shapes and colours I use. I have always liked the unbleached titanium, black and red colours that Asian artists generally use, because I find it very comforting and appealing. I do branch out from time to time, but you will see a lot of Asian influence in my work especially in this show on April 1st.

I have shown in London Ontario, Detroit and here in Toronto, but this is my first “official” showing in over 8 years. I’m looking forward to it and I hope the public will like what they see.”

Take a look inside to see what some of Toronto’s musicians are doing on and off the stage, where they come from, and where they’re heading in their careers. Here is the deal with a gifted OCAD lady and her band:

Justine Smith and  THE LOVE AND TERROR CULT

“We think [our band name] is a fitting description of humanity as a whole.”

Click on this link to listen to THE LOVE AND TERROR CULT’s Hal Johnson & Joanne MCLeod

2nd year painter, writer and video artist Justine Smith and her also artistically active friends Ryan Naray, Collin Young, Jon Galletly, Nilsson Gonsalves got together in 2005 to form this music project.

Edison Osorio: You guys are a Torontoburb-based underground band and being musicians is your part-time hobby/profession. What do you guys do on the side?

Justine Smith: All of us pursue our artsy interests: Ryan and I go to art school, Collin and Jon teach music, Nilsson and Jon run an art/ culture shop in their hometown.

EO: When did you guys get together and that sort of thing? Tell me anything you want about the band.

JS: We began I think in 2005 as a joke band, playing off all of the typical hardcore and metal sounds popular at the time. For some reason people responded, so we decided to get more real about it. This does not imply more serious- merely more true to creating the type of sound that appeals to us personally. We have changed and evolved as a band in the five years or so we have been together.

EO: Where does the name The Love and Terror Cult come from?

JS: We think it is a fitting description of humanity as a whole.

EO: How do you describe the music you guys make?

JS: It is weird and difficult to categorize… I don’t think I could give you a specific genre. We are aggressive and loud. Experimental. Influenced by tech metal and Tori Amos…

EO: What are some of the local bands you guys enjoy listening to?

JS: Dance Electric, Authors, Creeper, Metz, Ancestors, Deadly Hopefuls, Whiskey Priest, Please Standby… There are far too many to list. There are hundreds of good local acts, no matter what I will be leaving out many friends and talented musicians in this section.

As labeled on myspace by the band itself, experimental/grunge/punk are the genres that would best describe The Love and Terror Cult.

www.myspace.com/theloveandterrorcult

NOTE: Justine has announced future contributions related to the music scene in Toronto. More to come…

This blurb was originally conceived as an article for the OCAD Student Union publication, Cadmium, where it is presented in a different format.

From Wing Ding Event on Friday March, 5

On Friday, March 5 XPACE hosted a Cupcake Decorating Contest as part of our
Wing Ding Friday's event nights. We had a pretty big turnout and  
ended up with quite a variety of creative designs by the end of the night.
Our next Wing Ding Friday will be a bookbinding workshop on April 2nd.

Here are some photos to check out from the delicious evening...

Hito Steyerl, The Building, 2009

Between the Arts. What and Where Is German Photography Now?

Presentation by Felix Hoffmann, Chief Curator at C/O BERLIN
Ryerson University CONTACT Lecture Series
Monday, March 22, 7PM
Ryerson University – Library Building, Room 72
350 Victoria St at Gould St


Within Germany’s art scene, the medium of photography retains a strong presence on multiple levels. Over the past decades, a number of newly significant movements in the field of art education and art production have established themselves alongside the world famous Düsseldorf School of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth or Candida Höfer.

Between the Arts. What and Where Is German Photography Now? will examine these developments and provide an overview of the new schools of photography in Germany, while discussing the artistic and structural changes since 1990.

Felix Hoffmann, one of Europe’s most innovative photo and media art curators, is an art historian and art theorist, and is currently Head Curator at C/O Berlin.

Co-presented by the Ryerson Gallery & Research Centre, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, the School of Image Arts and CONTACT.

–

The War According to eBay

Lecture by Berlin based artist Hito Steyerl
Ryerson University CONTACT Lecture Series
Monday, March 29, 7PM
Ryerson University – Library Building, Room 72
350 Victoria St at Gould St

Hito Steyerl presents an illustrated talk about three documentary projects: an analysis of the sale of war photography on eBay, as well as a discussion of two of her own recent works entitled The Building andAfter the Crash.

The War According to eBay analyzes the fact that amateur photos of German soldiers in WWII constitute a growing market on eBay. In order to emphasize copyright claims, eBay vendors add various markings to the pictures, which Steyerl uses to talk about the original events as seen via their commodification and distribution on the internet.

Hito Steyerl is a Berlin based filmmaker, video and installation artist as well as a writer in the areas of essayist documentary and postcolonial criticism. Her award winning films and installation projects have been seen all over the world, including at Manifesta 5, Documenta 12, the Shanghai Biennial, the Rotterdam Film Festival and many other venues.

Co-presented by the Ryerson Gallery & Research Centre, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, the School of Image Arts, the Images Festival and CONTACT.

For more information contact Alice Jaroschek, 416 979 5000 x 2030

The Theatre Centre and Tanya Mars want to extend a Special Offer to their friends XPACE Cultural Centre. In her first Canadian performance since winning a 2008 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, see Tanya Mars’ Six Images in Search of an Artist: Remix.

Get 2 for 1 tickets* (2 tickets for only $10) if you email boxoffice@theatrecentre.org and cite the promo code: TM-XPACE (please include your name and phone number so a box office representative can call you to finalize your order) *A $1 Facility Fee per ticket and a $1 transaction fee applies for all orders. Your 2 for 1 ticket covers unlimited in/out privileges over the course of both March 18th and 19th.

Location: The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen St West, Toronto FREE FALL ‘10 – is a biennial festival celebrating innovation and risk in performance. This year sees nine new works by leading artists - emerging and established – from across Canada.

OTHER PACKAGE DEALS FOR FREE FALL:
Emerging Artist Package: see 3 shows for $35 (One Reed Theatre, The Chop Theatre and Why Not Theatre) Call The Theatre Centre box office at 416.538.0988 to order this package.

Out-Of-Towner Special: see either The Chop Theatre (Vancouver) or Bill James / Atlas Moves Watching (Peterborough) and get $10 off Theatre Junction (Calgary) when you show your ticket stub at the Harbourfront Centre box office.

Festival Pass: see up to seven shows for $60. Passes can only be ordered by phone, by calling Harbourfront Cenre at 416.973.4000.

More Information on Free Fall www.theatrecentre.org or
www.harbourfrontcentre.com

For more information go to  www.march18.org

Photographs by Kevin Robbins

In spite of having lived in Toronto for only three years (so far), I have developed a strong sense of home. The reasons for that sort of attachment I cannot explain, at least off the top of my head. Though they are certainly highly relevant. I came to live in Toronto after having exhausted my desire to live in a small city such as London, Ontario as well as relatively massive cities such as New York, where in both cases, for one reason or another, I never developed a genuine sense of attachment to anything cultural. I never felt that I belonged.

In a rather complex, particularly sudden series of events, I have come to see myself as part of a community in which I wasn’t born, Toronto. And in spite of the relatively few years I have spent in this town I am a part of it, a citizen who is involved in and contributing to, its cultural territory. In considering this, I have actually started to examine myself and seen in my actions basic traits of what it is that makes me ‘a local’.

I make art inspired by and for the local public, and I go to school here. I do my taxes here. I bike or walk everywhere, among other reasons, so I don’t pollute the ‘local’ air. I support local businesses and I drink local beer; etc. This is beside the fact that I do carry in me a sentimental connection (reword) to the life of this city, the crappy streetcars, the Don Valley trails, the cooling breeze from the lake, the elderly Chinese practicing tai chi in Grange Park. All these unique things, even the criticism we get from other Canadians for being too American, I love it all. But this perspective is by no means far from common. Like me, millions of others have come to this city to feel the type of attachment to which I have previously referred to, and which I think is a two-way avenue. Toronto offers you advantages and disadvantages but one must be willing to adapt.

To reafirm,that my settlement story is not the first of its kind, I live a city whose history is largely made up of stories similar to my own. Last week I came across a recently released book titled City of Words: Toronto through Her Writer’s Eyes. Edited by Sarah Elton, City of Words contains a compilation of stories, essays and poems told through the words of over 50 writers from varying cultural and generational backgrounds. The book also offers a variety of  photographs covering  different aspects of Toronto.

Both the written and visual elements attempt to answer the question of what it means to be involved with the city; culturally, geographically, architectonically, historically, economically and even sentimentally, both from the perspective of its citizens (born and raised here), and from new arrivers. The perspectives offered by the latter demographics collide at one point or another, forming a relationship, which in my opinion gives Toronto its unique identity, which signifies the embracement and celebrated allocation of cultural diversity.

And certainly Toronto’s position in regards to diversity is only one of the aspects that highlights this city’s uniqueness, and it is definitely not the only characteristic which so many people find lovable about this city. From my own perspective, when trying to pin down what makes an awesome cultural mosaic, one has to consider and examine not just a place’s cultural variety in terms of diaspora, and what different ethnic groups occupy a city, but how the distinct demographic groups that make up the whole city interconnect with cities profile, its history, geography, laws, economy, moral codes, etc. All of which determine, to a very large extent, social and individual relations, in other words whether they feel at home in their city, love it, hate it, feel indifferent and what have you.

The complex group of relations found in Toronto also plays a very similar role in the majority of modern cities particularly in North America. However, by comparison not all cities offer the – for the most part – favorable social atmosphere to such a relatively large number of people as does the city of Toronto. In City of Words I got a chance (important) to experience an embodiment and not just an illustration of what it means be a part of Toronto’s social atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the book has inspired me to further address my own social awareness.

London artist Ron Benner will present on his work on a panel which will discuss issues that relate to GMOs and sustainable practices in food production with Arlene Stein, Sarah Wakefield, and a student representative from The Hot Yam! student organization.

Event : organized by student members of the Hart House Farm Committee,  Hart House Social Justice Committee and Hart House Art Committee.

Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Time : 3 – 5 PM

Place : Debates Room in Hart House, University of Toronto

“Join Amanda Procter from Pueblito Canada and Ananya Ohri from York University, for a discussion about two different approaches to using art as a tool for community development.”

Follow the link above for details

and

I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY YOUR READING WEEK