Erik Nieminen – Anonymous Reality

Man in the Mirror, 2007, oil on canvas, 142 x 97 cm, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Nieminen

“The goal with the paintings is to create an alternate reality, one that may refer to our real world, but that also functions and a convincing space and situation all on its own.” Erik Nieminen's paintings create indeed an alternate reality that seems so random and in motion. They create an almost photographic contingency, like the German art historian Max Imdahl would say (see his essay on Degas' "Place de la Concorde” (1876), 1970). Distorted reflections on surfaces in modern urban spaces show people walking around, waiting at intersections, absorbed in thought - in interaction with others and in the same time isolated. 

City Swish, 2010, oil on canvas, 142 x 203 cm, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Niemine

Nieminen's urban spaces are all based on real ones. But as he states, he does not particularly care if the viewer recognizes a location – because his intention is not documentation. He says: “I’m interested in creating a situation, a condition that takes place on the stage created in the paintings. People might sometimes recognize a particular space as something they know, but I try to avoid making a painting of a location that makes it read as an icon. For example I would never paint Times Square by showing the usual view of the Coca-Cola ad tower, as that would bring the painting directly back to our world, and what I’m attempting to do is to create a unique world… like a theatrical stage set.” The paintings in the current show at the Karsh-Masson Gallery are based on locations from Montreal, Toronto, Paris, Ottawa, and New York. 

Installation view, Karsh-Masson Gallery, 1st floor, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Nieminen

Nieminen usually starts from a photographic source. As he says, he takes literally hundreds or thousands of photos of something on location. In a selection process, he then filters them down to a few dozen, and uses bits of information and imagery from several to create a whole. “Then, I take that information and make a drawing... sometimes loose, sometimes a bit more detailed, to make a new kind of space... changing perspective lines, warping, etc... then I go back to the digital images and try to (as best I can with my limited photoshop ability) manipulate my photos to get close to what I did in the drawing... then finally I start the painting (and it changes again during that process through the spontaneous decisions that are made along the way). The degree to which I edit or warp space depends entirely on the needs of each particular work.” 

Installation view, Karsh-Masson Gallery, ground floor, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Nieminen

I also asked him which artists influence his artistic style and approach:

“My influences are generally from artists who are concerned with space… with depiction. My original influences were the Italian Futurists, due to their interest in movement through space and their urban subject matter. Cubism interested me as well for similar reasons (the breaking up of space). David Hockney is someone who I’ve looked at closely, also because his main concerns are visual depiction and it’s relationship to photography. Also the works of other realist painters such as Edward Hopper, Robert Bechtle, Richard Estes, and Chuck Close. They all have a strong connection to photography, and I’ve always been attracted to their particular aesthetic.”

Flow, 2011, oil on canvas, 137 x 183 cm, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Nieminen

But he also mentions that his main interest lies in painting, not so much in photography. He understands himself not as a good photographer; taking photos provides rather the pictorial model for his paintings.

Installation view, Karsh-Masson Gallery, 1st floor, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Nieminen

The paintings in “Anonymous Reality” focus on perception of reflecting and semi-transparent surfaces that he transfers in an introspection. In doing so, he is reconfiguring reality in a surprising way. An impressive exhibit!

Stepping, 2010, oil on canvas, 142 x 142 cm, Copyright photo courtesy of Erik Nieminen

 

Facts:

Erik Nieminen – Anonymous Reality

Karsh-Masson Gallery

136 St. Patrick Street, Ottawa

June 10 to July 24, 2011

Link to the exhibit 

Place and Circumstance @ City Hall Art Gallery

Take your last chance to see the exhibition of recently acquired artworks through the City of Ottawa’s Fine Art acquisition program. Today is the last day!

left, top: Fouhse, Tony, Yvon, Ottawa, 2007, digital photograph on paper

left, bottom: Wonnacott, Justin, Intersection of Booth Street and Somerset looking southwest, summer evening, 2004, digital photograph on paper

right: Harrington, Michael, 401 GAS, 2010, oil on canvas

The exhibition shows places and incidents that shaped our public memory and experience – and the artistic expressions provide a new and unexpected view on our home city and the Nation's capital.

Due to the excellent hanging of artworks in different media such as painting, photography, prints, and sculpture, the stunning correlations between them become clear. Juxtapositions of street views, portraits, cityscapes, installations, and still lives compare and contrast each other, whereas the motives like Ottawa at night, the river, or documentation of the residents emerge through the exhibition.

Like the exhibition booklet says: “Distorted structures and shapes represent contemporary, ambiguous relationships between place and circumstance. Whether relying on images of familiar places and events to produce meaning through comparison, or destroying pre-existing notions of order and identity through the impositions of new narratives, these artworks explore what shapes our experiences as residents of this city.” [Jonathan Browns]

Argyle, Katie, day by day, week by week, month by month: Ottawa Bus Strike, 2009, linocut on paper

Some of the artworks refer to recent episodes that had a great impact on the life in Ottawa. E.g. we all remember the Public Transit Strike in winter 2008/2009. 

This painful cold experience is the subject of Katie Argyle's large-scale linocut print. In the style of Expressionists like Emil Nolde, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Ludwig Kirchner she documents the strike from its first strike day in December to the last day in January in a few rows of small prints. “52 days of transit hell” - like one of the signs in one of the prints states.

left: Mollineaux, Melinda, Ottawa Insomnia #6, 2007, photograph on paper

right: Reid, Leslie, Calumet - Current I, 2006, oil on canvas

Mollineaux captures night time experiences in her pinhole camera that she set up on her down town balcony at night. Due to the fact that the camera remained open the whole night, we can see how the moon travelled through the sky, leaving a glowing light...

Lasserre, Maskull, Lexicon, 2008, steel and newspaper

The sculpture that impressed me most in this show, is the large stack of tightly compressed newspapers that were cut in shape of a human torso skeleton. Lasserre understands his work “as a physical metaphor for the union of nature and artifice, and the paradox of their reconciliation.”

top: Thomas, Jeffrey, My Conversation with Edward S. Curtis: Return the Gaze, Swallow Bird (Crow Tribe), Joseph Crowe (Salteaux Tribe), 2006, digital photograph on paper

bottom: Berry, Judith, Disparate Elements, 2008, oil on MDF board

Also interesting is the photo of a powwow dancer, that Thomas set in juxtaposition to a portrait by Edward S. Curtis, who is well known for his series of the Natives in the early 20th century. By combining these two images, Thomas demonstrates how colonial his perspective was. Berry's “Disparate Elements” of build structures, a fallen tree, and a children's toy train bridge produce a “convoluted rerouting of plans” [from the exhibition booklet].

Hussey, Danny, Signs of Language Video Stills, 2009, silkscreen on digital print on paper 

In the last year, local Ottawa artists submitted 2,733 artworks; and 57 artworks by 37 artists were selected through a peer-review jury. At least one work by these artists is now shown in “Place and Circumstance” - a unique opportunity to see recent additions the the City of Ottawa's Fine Art Collection.

Facts:

Place and Circumstance

City Hall Art Gallery

New Additions to the City of Ottawa’s Fine Art Collection

April 22 to June 12, 2011

City Hall Art Gallery 

Canadian Landscapes @ Gordon Harrison Garden Exhibit last weekend

Gordon Harrison Garden Exhibit in New Edinburgh

What do we all associate with Canadian landscape painting? Yes, of course: Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, Emily Carr... Their paintings of the Canadian wilderness with a broad range of vigorous colours and confident brushstrokes shape our reception of the Canadian painting in the early 20^th century. Gordon Harrison stands in this pictorial tradition – and a broad spectrum of his colourful paintings were displayed last weekend in a very unusual exhibition – outside, under the sunny sky, in a garden.

Gordon Harrison Garden Exhibit

Located in New Edinburgh, Harrison showed his newest paintings in and around his studio an John Street. From June 3^rd till 5^th, dozens of his paintings were displayed on brick walls, on easels, and even on the garden fence!

Gordon Harrison: Georgian Pine Collection 9

Harrison's paintings with strong, thick strokes of oil paint seem to gleam from the inside. In particular the almost abstract paintings caught my attention – when the autumn foliage is just indicated with a few strong brush strokes of warm red oil paint. To obtain his subject matter, stunning beautiful Canadian landscapes, Harrison does not have to travel too far. Some were created from motives inside Gatineau Park (like the Champlain Lookout), and he found a lot of inspiration in the Laurentians – where he and his partner Phil Emond have a B&B. According to the website of the Gordon Harrison Gallery, Harrison is mainly self-taught, and studied at the Ottawa School of Art. He was highly influenced by the Quebec painter Jean-René Richard (1895-1982). As Harrison says: “I refer to my art as ‘Impressionism-Realism’: my brush strokes are broad, loose and intense, yet my subject matter remains clear.”

Gordon Harrison: Panorama de bouleaux Collection 1 (Gatineau Park)

The exhibition was also combined – as every year - with Doors Open Ottawa; therefore a lot of people were attracted to see the artist's studio, listen to live music and spend some time relaxing in the shady garden. Also featured were glass artworks by Catherine Vamvakas-Lay. Her colourful glass vases, sculptures and paper weights were a meaningful addition to the exhibition; because they reflect, like Gordon Harrison's paintings, the thin boundary between abstract and figurative. Catherine holds a bachelor degree in Fine Arts and in Administrative Studies from York University, as well as a diploma in glass from Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning.

This painting was inspired by the landscape in Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson (Laurentians).

The show was a success: According to the volunteers of Doors Open, more than 450 visitors came on Saturday and Sunday (for each day). And 17 paintings were sold, together with a signed and framed T-Shirt of the artist – full of colourful paint that is Harrison's signature feature.

Gordon Harrison: Convergence

Facts:

Gordon Harrison 9^th Annual Garden Exhibit

June 3-5, 2011 (I assume, next year again on the first weekend of June)

Gordon Harrison Studio

81 John Street

Gordon Harrison and Catherine Vamvakas-Lay are represented by:

Gordon Harrison Gallery