For Immediate Release: Jan. 2016

Cape Flora

Gareth Bate's Solo Exhibition at Loop Gallery, Toronto.

Opening Reception:
Sat. Jan. 30, 2016, 2-5 pm

Q & A: Sunday February 21st, 2 p.m.

Dates: Jan. 30 - Feb. 21, 2014
Entry to this exhibit is free
Days: Wednesday - Saturday 12 p.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. or by appointment

Address: 1273 Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON, M6J 1X8   (three doors west of Dovercourt)
Loop Gallery Website
416-516-2581
loopgallery@primus.ca

Artist Statement

“My new Cape Flora paintings are about letting go and allowing myself to just make art without ideas about what kind of an artist I am - or ought to be. There’s no political agenda, no intellectual concepts and nothing capital C contemporary blah blah. My new philosophy of art making is “I don’t give a crap.” Or perhaps the more Bhagavad Gita way of saying it - detachment from the outcome. (I love the Bhagavad Gita by the way.) Now of course I care deeply about making art. I just don’t care what imagery comes out. As they’d say on LOST - Whatever happened happened. No judgement, no expectations. The result - remarkably - is totally coherent and one of the best bodies of work I’ve done. I love these paintings.

Every year I visit North Lake - a little fishing village in Prince Edward Island. A really special place. Every night, sitting around the dining room table with my partner Graham - I’d just draw in markers. I didn’t care what happened because they didn’t matter. The results were boisterous and vibrant drawings of plants, flowers and amorphous sea creatures. It was so liberating.

I’d been working on a body of work for a year and was sick to death of it. It was stale and contrived. When I returned to Toronto - in one day - I painted over 30 paintings - a year of work! I experimented with an “automatic” approach. This meant I just launched right in with spontaneous brushwork and went wild. No conscious thought or intention. Whatever imagery emerged I just went with it.

Immediately the paintings had a raw vitality. An explosion of new life. Spring bursting out, letting go. They’re filled with vines, knots, nerves, trees, leaves, blossoms and glowing lights. A cosmic garden or tree of life. Swirls of colour and churning vortexes of tangled webs and crisscrossing vines. These elements then repeat and rearrange themselves in new ways. My intentional paintings would never have looked like this! I feel rejuvenated, like I’ve released a ton of built up tension and anxiety. Over the last few months I’ve refined these images into finished paintings without losing their initial impulse.

I now recognize that the paintings feel reminiscent of my 2015 trip to South Africa. I was born there and we left when I was six because of Apartheid. I was returning after almost two decades. In Cape Town I visited the spectacular Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden at the foot of Table Mountain. I was with my half-sister who I was meeting for the first time. The remarkable collection of local fynbos and protea plants seeped into my mind.

For me the paintings feel reminiscent of the tangled vines in the Book of Kells, the gardens in Indian Mughal miniatures, the weaving of Islamic calligraphy, microscopic photos of cells and the plant patterns of William Morris. All completely accidental - filtering into my mind over the years and bursting out now - because I finally let it.”

Recent

Cape Flora
Solo Show

Loop Gallery, Toronto

Cosmos and Anarchy: Part 2
Solo Show

Loop Gallery, Toronto

Past

Cosmos and Anarchy
Solo Show

Loop Gallery, Toronto

Indicator
Toronto Nuit Blanche

Gareth Bate Art Projects
401 Richmond St. West.

Something Still
Group Show

Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto.

Responsive Space II
Group Show

Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto.

Gareth Bate's 2012 Review: Yearly Update

Art practice, exhibitions, etc.

Variegated Threads:
World of Threads Festival

Curating at Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre, Oakville.

Outside Environmental Installations:
World of Threads Festival

Curating at Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre, Oakville.

Protrusion:
World of Threads Festival

Curating at 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto.

Fibre Collage:
World of Threads Festival

Curating at Abbozzo Gallery, Oakville.

"Where the Wild Things Aren't":
Group Show

Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa

Gareth Bate's 2011 Review: Yearly Update

Art practice, exhibitions, etc.

FROLIC: 401 Richmond Artists Open Studio

Gareth Bate Art Projects, 401 Richmond, St. W., Toronto

"Floating World"
Solo Exhibition

Loop Gallery, Toronto

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Gareth Bate's 2010 Review: Yearly Update

Art practice, exhibitions, etc.

Gareth Bate Art Projects Official Launch

Gareth Bate Art Projects
Studio S-17, 401 Richmond St. W. Toronto

"Where They Are Now: OCADU Alumni Exhibition"

Art Square Gallery, Toronto

"Moments" Solo Painting Exhibition

Gareth Bate Art Projects, Toronto

For The Infinite, Book Cover.

Ryerson Poetry Chapbook, Toronto

Gareth Bate's 2009 Review: Yearly Update

Art practice, exhibitions, etc.

"Common Thread International Exhibition" at World of Threads Festival

B42 Gallery, Oakville.

"The Winter LamentPaintings," Solo Exhibition

Canadian Heritage Office Gallery, Toronto

"BeeCause," Fundraising Auction for the Canadian Bee Research Fund

The Arts Project London,London.

"Between Reality & Fantasy"

Katherine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto

"Corps Intérieur"
Set Design Installation

David Pressault Danse at the Monument National Theatre, Montreal.

Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant

For Corps Intérieur Set Design Installation

"Hard Twist: 3rd Annual Juried Textile Art Exhibition"

The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto.

"Bigger, Bigger and More Desperate"

Deleon White Gallery, Toronto

"Art 401: A group exhibition of 401 Richmond Artists"

The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto.

"Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition": Lament Paintings

Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto

"Lament": 401 Richmond Career Launcher Prize Solo Exhibition

Studio 260, 401 Richmond St. West, Toronto

"Penance Performance"

Queen Street West, Toronto

"Plastic Paintings" Solo Exhibition.

Public Health Canada Office, Toronto

"Residual Landscapes" Photography Exhibition

Arcadia Gallery, Toronto

"Nuit Blanche: Ann Hamilton's Listening Choir," Performance

Varius Locations, Toronto

Read More

"Central Tech Alumni Show"

The Library Gallery, Central Technical School, Toronto

"Nuit Blanche: In Memory of Brian Kipping"

Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto

Gareth Bate wins 2007
401 Richmond Career-Launcher Prize

Ontario College of Art & Design & Margaret Zeidler.