For Immediate Release

Responsive Space II

Gareth Bate

Liz Pead

Howard Podeswa

Jim Reid

April 18 - May 12, 2013, opening reception: Saturday, April 20 from 2-5pm

Responsive Space II is the second instalment of a project, wherein artists are brought together to share their unique, contemporary experiences of the land and their expressions of our ever-evolving relationship with nature. In a digitally immersed society, one's relationship to the nature and history becomes distorted by the overwhelming dissemination of information and the removal from direct experience.

This exhibition features the artwork of Gareth Bate, Liz Pead, Howard Podeswa and Jim Reid. Each of these artists synthesizes landscape through various material means. Although their practices, and the resulting artworks, are very distinctive, there are striking parallels in the motivations and interests connecting this diverse group.

Liz Pead and Howard Podeswa have both created bodies of work in reaction and reference to art historical influences. Pead, who utilizes discarded hockey equipment to fashion detailed landscapes, was initially inspired to do so through her examination of the Group of Seven. By using recycled hockey equipment to construct scenes, Pead employs the landscape to speak to greater issues of play, materiality, consumption and symbols connected to our national identity. Her works are at once playful and contemplative.

Similarly, the paintings of Howard Peodeswa emerged from an in-depth study and interpretation of the paintings of famed Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Podewsa distorts and reworks Goya's master works by playing with the cropping and framing of specific details in the production of new, reimagined artworks. The main scene of his inspiration is Goya's 'The Meadow of San Isidro on his Feast Day', which depicts a festival in progress. Goya's painting is layered in denotations of the social traditions and the culture of his time. Podeswa's paintings then become an abstraction of these scenes. His paintings are both homage and deconstruction of Goya's painting as he rebuilds these works with his own brush, adding a new contemporary context through the addition and omission of information from the original scene. Both Pead and Podeswa are tapping into the art historical tradition of the landscape sublime, but doing so in a way that references our contemporary standpoint through the use of technology, modern materials and a knowing look to the past. By looking at the traditions of landscape throughout art history, these artists gain clues to our current condition and relationship to nature.

By contrast, Gareth Bate and Jim Reid reflect the landscape back to the viewer, using it to mirror our human interaction and place within nature. Each of their bodies of work comes from a place of connection and deliberation. Both artists are creating work from sites of great personal importance with results that are simultaneously looming and fantastic. Gareth Bate's 'Lament' paintings are, to the artist,"an existential contemplation on our place within nature and our effect on the world". The Lament series stemmed from prolonged studies of sites important to the artist; Grenadier Pond in Toronto's High Park, and Kings County in Prince Edward Island. Though scenes of joy and familiarity, back in the studio, these paintings are transformed into dark predictions of the potential, (or probable), effects of man on nature. The murky, contrasted tones of Bate's acrylic washesreinforce his dark vision of the scenes he creates.

Jim Reid's 'Terraforms' are created by casting the ground of the Canadian Shield and the Niagara Escarpment. These studies are tributes to Reid's life-long home, as well as the site of significant environmental lobbying for preservation in the face of massive developments and invasion of these extraordinary natural reserves. After casting the ground, Reid works into the surfaces with paint, mixed media and found natural elements. Curator Ihor Holubizky, hassaid of Reid's 'Terraforms': "rather than being satisfied with a transcription of the ground he [Reid] incorporates natural and man-made materials in a hybrid amalgam where toxic material and waste combine to create new typography. The resulting work suggests growth (the implicit cycle of nature) and decay (also expressed in the unstable nature of the material itself). Reid's landscape is a means of mapping a surface in a poetic fashion."

Lonsdale Gallery is pleased to further the dialogue amongst these artists. Although diverse in their motivations and their media, Bate, Pead, Podeswa and Reid, inclusively, are tapping into a collective consciousness regarding the natural landscape and its enduring influence on our culture.

LONSDALE GALLERY
410 SPADINA ROAD
TORONTO, ON. M5P 2W2
416.487.8733
LONSDALEGALLERY.COM
WED. -SUN. 11-5 and by appointment

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

Read More

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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

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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.