The Importance of Persona in the Work and Practice of Toronto Artists
April 15 - 25th 2004
376 Dufferin (at Queen)
Tamara Stone was born in Montreal and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She earned her BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University in Boston. Several years ago, after a period of concentration on painting she rediscovered her early fascination with kinetic sculpture. Her recent installations are studies of emotion and cognition through human-machine interactivity. Tamara currently devides her time between San Francisco and Toronto. Her work has been shown across Canada as well as in Boston and Ann Arbor, Deadtech in Chicago and ISEA2002 in Nagoya Japan. This season she will be participating in shows in Reno and Toronto.
Allan Doyle has studied philosophy at McGill University and painting at Concordia University. He received his MFA from Tufts University and The School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2003 and is currently a candidate for a Masters in Art History at the University of Toronto. His studio production involves photography, digital imaging and painting and he has exhibited his work in group and solo exhibitions in Canada and the United States. Much of his recent work deals with gender and in particular, the representation of masculinity. He lives and works in Cambridge, Ontario.
Robin Fry studied at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design during the late 1990s. He had a two person show with Jay Isaac earlier this year at XENO in Vancouver entitled Elemental Brooker. His work has been included in several recent Toronto group exhibitions including Two Weeks in Autumn at Greener Pastures, Chamomile Testerosa at the 1066 Project Space, 29 Days to the Curb at Gallery 1313. The year following an exhibit of bookwork projects, along with Jason McLean, at Moonbase in Vancouver (1999), Fry showcased his first solo exhibition with Hunter's Handshake at the Helen Pitt Gallery.
Lydia Klenck completed a degree in textile design in 2001 at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She is currently producing a small clothing line.
Michael Klein is a Toronto-based artist. He received a B.F.A. (Honours) from the University of Manitoba in 1983 and an M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1986. He was involved in the early activities of the Winnipeg Photographers Group (Floating Gallery/Platform) as well as Video Pool in Winnipeg and has been exhibiting video and photography based work for more than 20 years. As well as having exhibited at Plug In Inc. in Winnipeg several times, he conceived and co-curated Plug In ICA's 30th anniversary exhibition, Back In The Day which took place during 2002-2003. In Toronto, he has exhibited recently at Solo Exhibition, Luft Gallery, Project, Gallery 1313, and participated in several Instant Coffee projects. He has also organized numerous exhibitions and publications as a former member of the Public Access Collective and project coordinator at Art Metropole. Most recently he has served as a member of YYZ Artists' Outlet's board of directors.
Gillian Iles is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design (1997). She exhibits locally and internationally in commercial and artist-run galleries. Gillian is a founding member of two co-operative artist-run galleries (Propeller and Loop) in Toronto. She has received several awards and scholarships including 4th year Woman Painter (OCAD) and Best Painter and Best Portrait Awards at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. Gillian's work has been reviewed in such publications as The Globe and Mail, National Post, Now and Eye Weekly. She has been profiled in Mix Magazine and Surface and Symbol. As a guest artist, she has lectured to post secondary visual art thesis students and is currently an instructor at the Toronto School of Art and Artworks Art School.
Gillian's paintings combine rich vital realism with flat outlines and coloured abstraction.