weewerk 12
The Flower Show

Saturday 16 August
doors at 8:00
band plays 9:30ish
PWYC!

620A Queen Street West
(above Rotate This)
416-365-7056

Please join us on Saturday 16 August for a midsummer night of lusciousness on weewerk's back patio.

We have gathered artwork by Louise Noguchi, Anitra Hamilton, Ed Pien, Karen Azoulay, and Ben Oakley that graft together human and plant urges, implicit violence and sexuality, or which cultivate romance, regret and even a bit of social analysis from recuperated and organic materials. A gentle sonic bloom by The Blue Gardenias will complete the evening.

Works in the exhibition

DINING ROOM, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP OF STAIRS

Ben Oakley
Field with Blue Flowers 2003
Acrylic and natural pigments on stitched materials

Louise Noguchi
Crack 2000
Video projection

Karen Azoulay
Untitled 2002
Watercolour on paper

Ed Pien
Earthly Delights 2000-01
Ink on glassine

BEDROOM / CORRIDOR

Anitra Hamilton
Untitled 1996
MDF, moss, lichen, glue
The artist thanks the Ontario Arts Council.

GARDEN

Anitra Hamilton
Untitled (Outdoor mini version) 2003
Soil, moss, tin

Biographies

The Blue Gardenias are Pete Dako, Danny Bowden and Lisa Pereira. Link to their page on Pete's website.

Anitra Hamilton is currently based in Toronto. For the past ten years she has been producing art and exhibiting in Canada and abroad. She is currently making a transition from object-based production to interventions, but you will see an object at weewerk. Upcoming is a one-work-for-one-year project for the Cambridge Art Gallery. She is on the Board of Directors at Mercer Union, an Installation Technician at the Power Plant Gallery, and an occasional writer.

Known for his drawings and large-scale installations, Ed Pien works in the spaces between mythology and fairy-tales, fiction and fact. The strange and hybridized figures that appear in his work metaphorically represent sites of difference and resistance, and may seem to allude to contemporary and historical events in various cultures. Pien's most recent installation took place at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and he will participate this fall in Art Forum Berlin. Pien received his BFA from University of Western Ontario and MFA from York University. His has exhibited nationally and internationally in venues that include: The Drawing Centre, New York; The New Paradise, Taipei; La Biennale de Montreal; W139, Amsterdam; The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; The Canadian Culture Centre, Paris; Middlesbrough Art Gallery, UK; Parkhaus, Berlin; Quartair, The Hague; and Prüss & Ochs, Berlin.

Louise Noguchi is a Toronto-based artist represented by Robert Birch Gallery. Her video Crack was recently featured as part of the Art Gallery of Ontario's "In Light" exhibition series.

Karen Azoulay is a sculptural installation artist. She was recently recognized in The Globe and Mail as an emerging artist of national prominence. Her solo show sprinkle sprinkle at Paul Petro Contemporary Art was also highlighted in Canadian Art magazine. Recent and upcoming exhibits include Great White North at the Scope Art Fair in Los Angeles, Some Things at The University of Waterloo Art Gallery, the Live Arts Festival at the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo, and the exhibition The Fountain of Youth at the 2003 Toronto International Art Fair this November. Along with Joel Gibb, Karen is also The Ensemble of Tops'n' Bottoms, a collaborative dress-up performance. Azoulay's installations are composed of many sculptural elements crafted out of paper, paint, and fabric. Abstract motifs refer to precipitation, floral growth, confetti and the soft downpour of various other romantically charged and magically infused particles.

Ben Oakley studied Fine Arts at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario and at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and was an art educator with the MacLaren Art Centre before moving to Toronto. He has won awards at the 2002 and 2003 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibitions. Katharine Mulherin Gallery presented his solo exhibition bleeding quietly in 2002. Oakley's current works arise from a concern with environmental depression and ecological abuse propogated by humans. He uses discarded, restitched second-hand fabrics and organic materials to create distressed, minimal landscapes.