For Immediate Release

Jessica Marion Barr, Karen Abel, Gareth Bate.

Karen Abel.

Jessica Marion Barr.

Gareth Bate.

Indicator

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

Part of Practice Practice – Built for ART
at 401 Richmond St. West, Toronto.

October 5-19, 2013

Karen Abel
Jessica Marion Barr
Gareth Bate

Opening: Oct 5 from 6:51 pm to sunrise.

Gareth Bate Art Projects | Studio S-17
401 Richmond Street West, Toronto ON
Dates: Oct. 5 - 19
Hours: Thurs to Sat 12-6
Open Wednesdays by chance or appointment
Download Press Release as pdf

Nuit Blanche Website
Contact Email: contact@garethbate.com

Birds, bats, bees. Indicator species signal the deteriorated state of ecosystems, warning us when our environs are in trouble. Three elegiac installations investigate the concept of biological indicators and the suffering of wildlife due to habitat destruction, climate change, and environmental contamination. A rain cloud of bird bones and a chandelier inhabited by crystalline cast-sugar bats float in the gallery space, encircled by a ghostly amphitheatre-like wall mural of the ancient Roman Coliseum hand drawn with liquid honey. A sound installation layering the calls and sounds of these animals pervades the ecological arena. Visitors are embedded and implicated in the disastrous results of the global incursion of human 'empire', as manifested in our ailing 'indicator' species.

Karen Abel's Hibernaculum is a sculpture constructed from five salvaged chandeliers. Hanging cast sugar bat sculptures replace the fixtures' original decorative crystal prisms, creating an intricate biological structure that references the cluster formations of cave-hibernating bats. With each iteration, the sugar structure is expanded in size to reference the slow formation of a cave stalactite, which, like the ecology of the caves that bats rely on for their winter habitat, take centuries to develop and can be forever changed by a single disturbance. The hibernating bat sculptures reference Myotis lucifugus, an Ontario bat species listed as endangered due to the emergence of a fatal disease invading cave habitats across North America. Claiming an estimated 7 million bats, the impact has been described as the most sudden and unforeseen wildlife decline in living memory. In the absence of scientific understanding, Hibernaculum attempts to illuminate a mysterious wildlife disease obscured in the darkness of hibernation.

Augury refers to omens, from the ancient Roman tradition of interpreting birds' behaviour and bones as signs of divine judgement. Jessica Marion Barr's Augury : Elegy addresses a seemingly apocalyptic spate of bird-flock deaths that began on New Year's Eve 2011 in Arkansas, when 4,000 blackbirds fell out of the sky, dead. In the days that followed, dozens of similar incidents occurred. BirdLife International states: "Birds are crucial indicators of ecosystem health. Changes in bird populations signal changes in the ecosystems we depend on for food, clean air, and water." The warnings are everywhere, if only we would choose to see them – because those were a lot of canaries, and we're all in this coal mine together. The visceral, elegiac confrontation with the bird bones (salvaged from food preparation) in the piece reminds viewers that we are all implicated in potentially catastrophic climate change.

Gareth Bate's Colony Collapse is an image of the Roman Coliseum hand drawn on the walls of the exhibition space in liquid honey, whose drips echo the architecture of this icon, creating an analogy between the fall of the Roman Empire and the precariousness of our own civilization, as bee populations (whose roles as pollinators sustain our food supply) dwindle due to Colony Collapse Disorder. Researchers estimate that nearly one-third of all honeybee colonies in the U.S. have vanished. Bate writes: "In perilous times, this installation represents a sense of fragility and interconnectedness. We seem to operate under the strange idea that culture is separate from nature, as opposed to being a manifestation of it."

Indicator brings these three powerful pieces together with a unique sonic palimpsest to create an immersive meditation on our relationship with our environing world, and to suggest that we heed the messages these species are sending us.

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Cosmos and Anarchy: Part 2
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Past

Cosmos and Anarchy
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Toronto Nuit Blanche

Gareth Bate Art Projects
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Something Still
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Gareth Bate's 2012 Review: Yearly Update

Art practice, exhibitions, etc.

Variegated Threads:
World of Threads Festival

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Outside Environmental Installations:
World of Threads Festival

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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

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FROLIC: 401 Richmond Artists Open Studio

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"Floating World"
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Loop Gallery, Toronto

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Gareth Bate's 2010 Review: Yearly Update

Art practice, exhibitions, etc.

Gareth Bate Art Projects Official Launch

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"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

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

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Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant

For Corps Intérieur Set Design Installation

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"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

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

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"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.