>>PREVIEW
MARGAUX WILLIAMSON AND TYLER CLARK BURKE
Runs until November 25
Skew Gallery
Queen Street West must be quite a place these days. A show at Calgary’s Skew Gallery features two of the Toronto gallery district’s most well-known young denizens, Margaux Williamson and Tyler Clark Burke. Clark Burke has a resumé that is exhausting to read – art director, visual artist, illustrator, founder of a record label, and collaborator with musicians such as Feist and Peaches. Williamson, on the other hand, has been referred to in several publications as the greatest painter of her generation.
With such a build up, it would be easy to dismiss the work as anti-climactic. However, neither artist’s contribution can be reduced to such simple terms. Both share an interest in the space where magic and realism meet. Their images are snapshots of rich, if ambiguous narratives – intriguing to say the least.
The first and largest of Williamson’s paintings is Ocean Like (2006). Here, an old bus appears to be rusting away in the middle of a sun-baked desert, with algae growing up its sides. In the bottom corner of the panel, a woman with a bandaged head sits awkwardly, attempting to bathe her legs in the muddy brown water that has spilled from an overturned plastic bucket. She seems oblivious to the large half-full (or half-empty) glasses of clean water on the desert floor behind her. Two house cats sit contentedly at the bottom edge of the picture, staring out at the viewer.
This particular piece is from a series called In the Woods, where the artist depicted the inhabitants of her Queen Street neighbourhood, but replaced their urban backdrop with a natural one. You can see some darker elements of the inner city here – a world of contradictions, of needless desperation and nonsensical decay.
Two other paintings take on the media, but instead of heavy-handed criticism, Williamson creates more subtle situations. Lady Justice in Outer Space (2006) shows the statue transformed into a Paris Hilton-like figure. Still made out of pale stone, she is topless but wearing black leggings. Her blindfold has been replaced by huge, dark sunglasses, and instead of the symbolic scales, her hand is filled with dog leashes. There are two matching sets of pooches, two black and two brown.
The Protest (2006) shows two figures in silhouette in front of a theatrical backdrop of a marsh and bare trees. A reporter in a sun hat and flak jacket holds out a microphone for the other man to speak into. Surrounding them, the real forest is darker and more ominous than the scene that will be shown on camera.
Clark Burke’s sculptures require much closer study. A series of 17 small, laser-etched glass cubes mounted on motorized bases sit on a shelf along the gallery wall. The intricate 3D images shaped inside each block are based on Clark Burke’s drawings. New angles are revealed as the cubes rotate and delicate details appear and disappear when illuminated by pulsating, multi-coloured lights in the base. Based on cheesy souvenir ornaments, the artist has taken these materials to new heights.
Viewed in order, each object depicts a scene from an intricate story with mythological elements. A woman dies and ascends into the sky where she is transformed into a bear. This bear then encounters Trepanation Man, whose consciousness spouts from the top of his skull like a geyser. Falling Man is caught mid-air next to the sectional sofa in his high-rise apartment. In a park across the street from the building, the bear confronts an apparition whose grizzled face in the sky is as large as a city block.
It’s almost enough to make you want to head for Toronto. |
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