The IRIS Group is pleased to be part of OshawaSpaceInvaders: Contemporary Art in Temporary Spaces A Festival celebrating Visual Art in Downtown Oshawa http://www.oshawaspaceinvaders.com IRIS will be at 16 King Street East Oshawa Exhibition preview Friday September 13, 6 - 9 pm
The streets of Downtown Oshawa will come alive with visual art from September 13 through 28th, 2013. Celebrating the lively visual art scene in downtown Oshawa, approximately 100 artists from seven groups will present exhibitions of artwork in vacant commercial spaces. Each group of artists represents a unique relationship to Oshawa and the Durham Region. Entitled OshawaSpaceInvaders, this exhibition is supported by the Downtown Oshawa Board of Management (BIA) and numerous individuals and businesses in Downtown Oshawa.
Sept. 13th – 28th, Wed.–Sat. 12:00 – 6:00pm OshawaSpaceInvaders, Durham Region’s largest free contemporary art festival is a full scale art attack as numerous art groups and approximately 100 artists take over empty spaces in Oshawa’s Downtown. All activities Simcoe Street and East to Mary Street.
Sept. 20thOshawaSpaceInvaders ARTCRAWL The full invasion takes place Friday, Sept. 20th with 10 bands on 2 stages starting at 5:00, opening comments and Main Stage at 7:00. Space Vendors beside the Regent and UOIT on the Victoria St. Mall. Tour the many galleries and meet Silver Elvis! Oshawa’s upstarts VIVA MARS land on the main stage at 7:00 and two-time Juno Award winning blues artist Jack de Keyzer at 10:00. The Main stage is off Celina Street one block east of Simcoe at King and the second stage is on the Victoria St. Mall beside the Regent Theatre. Adults and children are encouraged to dress the part. OSI will is taking place during Culture Days (September 27-29) and Oshawa Doors Open (September 28).
Art Gallery of Peterborough Sept 7 to Oct 27, 2013 The Tree Museum: Easy Come, Easy Go Guest curated by: EJ Lightman Featured artists: Rebecca Armstrong, Jocelyne Belcourt Salem, Michel Boucher, Maralynn Cherry, John Dickson, Deeter Hastenteufel with Peter Gugeler, Roger Henriques, Francis LeBouthillier, E.J. Lightman, Dyan Marie, Anne O'Callaghan, Heather Phillips, Ed Pien, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Margaret Rodgers, Lyla Rye, Meghan Scott, Jordy Steinberg, Penelope Stewart, Orest Tataryn, Jeannie Thib, Francesca Vivenza, Tim Whiten, Gayle Young, Badanna Zack and Johannes Zits
Easy Come, Easy Go is a ‘suitcase project’ conceived of by the curator with some of the featured artists while working on the last Tree Museum residency project. Following these initial discussions, residency artists were invited to reanimate old salvaged suitcases thereby recuperating the old vessels, and thus breathing another kind of life otherwise discarded forms. Lightman clarifies her position by writing, “The project addresses the issues of “coming and going”; inner reflection; and relics of pilgrimage, both in the objective and subjective realms. Given the frequently nomadic aspect of modern life, the suitcase provides a rich symbol for movement, change, necessity, and ownership. At the same time, there is a sense that the suitcase holds a history; it may be viewed as an “historical” object, an artefact, something of use but no longer current . . . Entire stories exist between the hinge and clasp of a suitcase.” Viewers may wonder about the stories these old suitcases hold? What enigmas they might contain? Featured artists mine the suitcase metaphor for its potential to open up discussions around the temporal and/or the transience of treed landscape. Likewise the luggage allegory is explored as a link between the private and public and/or singular/plural. Singularity is introduced through each artist’s individual intervention plurality is addressed by the suitcase format taken by all twenty-five stuffed works. Similiarly the suitcase is recognized as a framing device that may cue spectators to think about the tension between its form and its content and how these two notions could possibly be resolved (or extended) to illuminate a variety of scenarios including general longing for escape.
Lightman muses, “Just as the body may be described as a container for the spirit, the suitcase can be understood as a vessel for a physical collection of sacred and mundane objects, all of which inevitably lose their original function, just like the Tree Museum which while remaining opening for viewing can no longer afford to support future residencies or put another way are transient in the greater scheme of things.” AGP Curator, Carla Garnet Special event for Tree Museum exhibit Friday, September 27, 6:30 to 7:30 pm, Free Unpack the Art panel: Maralyn Cherry, E.J. Lightman, Anne O’Callaghan
Five artists’ documentation of an old piano- left outside in front of BluSeed over a period of years- manifested back to life via photo, painting, assemblage and print.
Featured Artists:
Eleanor Sweeney, Margaret Rodgers, John LaFalce, Tom Lascell and Larry
Poole