The Power Plant

First up is Alex Cameron, a Gallery Attendant who is also a theatre artist, actor, and musician.

“One thing I really like about the Winter 2023 exhibitions is how most of the artworks are intentionally open to interpretation. Throughout all three shows, there’s a central theme: what is not depicted, and what a viewer does not know, is just as important as what is there and what you do know. And it is also valid, encouraged, and okay to not know things—it's a jumping off point for your own discovery, reflection, and critical thought. I think it's important for artwork to serve as a starting point for call-and-response conversations. How one responds to an artwork is just as beautiful and meaningful as the original work itself.”

Of the three exhibitions on view, Teresa feels a personal connection with the group exhibition in parallel, a two-part exhibition featuring diverse artists from Tkaronto (Toronto) and surrounding areas who question the established concepts of what constitutes mainstream art.

“My favorite piece is A Passage by Rouzbeh Akhbari and Felix Kalmenson, which is about Armenia. People may overlook this video work at first glance, but it touches my heart when I hear the folk song about a father taking a train across the country with his sons. The son asks, ‘What year is it? Is this the USSR?’ And the fathers says, ‘It’s peacetime. Instead of guns, everyone is preparing tea and baklava.’ It resonates with those who are facing turbulent times. One day, peace will come, and we will see our family and friends again.”

“I like how Draney’s paintings invoke agency in the viewer. She thinks painting is a reciprocal relationship between her and an audience, meaning that when we look at her work, we’re actively creating it rather than passively observing or receiving it. That’s one of the reasons why there’s always blank or ‘unfinished’ space in her paintings. They present sparingly rendered figures, objects, and landscapes, and we add to them by projecting onto those blank spaces. As viewers, we’re very active.”

Ciar’s favourite artwork from the exhibition is Scroll One, an ongoing project that Draney has been working on since 2010. “The images she paints on the scroll are very small, so they feel delicate and vulnerable. That vulnerability pulls me in as a viewer and strongly embodies the artist’s interest in reciprocity.”