The winter of 2005 seems oh so distant and alien on this muggy Canada Day eve.
I stumbled into the gallery of Mercer Union, which, at the time was just around the corner
from my gallery on Dovercourt, south of Queen.
That was before the neighbourhood had gentrified, before my studio building was sold off as the new "art condos", which pushed out the actual practising artists, set designers, and dancers who occupied the building.
On an extra snowy day, I found myself staring at an amazing portrait of the Queen, rendered entirely in fur, by artist Marianne Corless.
Sharing common thematic conceptual explorations, in our work, I felt a kinship of interest, and I loved the humour in her work.
Her work incorporates quite literally the "spoils of the colonies", vintage furs of various species, alluding to the materials that were covetable in Europe which led to the exploration and eventual settlement of much of Canada and the north.
Happy Canada Day, everyone...
I stumbled into the gallery of Mercer Union, which, at the time was just around the corner
from my gallery on Dovercourt, south of Queen.
That was before the neighbourhood had gentrified, before my studio building was sold off as the new "art condos", which pushed out the actual practising artists, set designers, and dancers who occupied the building.
On an extra snowy day, I found myself staring at an amazing portrait of the Queen, rendered entirely in fur, by artist Marianne Corless.
Sharing common thematic conceptual explorations, in our work, I felt a kinship of interest, and I loved the humour in her work.
Her work incorporates quite literally the "spoils of the colonies", vintage furs of various species, alluding to the materials that were covetable in Europe which led to the exploration and eventual settlement of much of Canada and the north.
Happy Canada Day, everyone...
