Quest Art's 2019 TD Thor Wealth Management Juried Exhibition

100 word Artist Statement about the work: Hybrids of painting and sculpture, from small genetically modified paintings on paper to large paintings on aluminum to massive floor installations to gigantic outdoor ephemeral earthworks.

Dimensions: 243 x 121 x 10

Dimensions: 155 x 216 x 76

100 word Artist Statement about the work: My videos do not tell stories; they are purely visual with the intent to alter the mood of the viewer. Movements in the videos create a mesmerizing or hypnotic effect when watched in their entirety. Some of my videos create a calm, relaxed feeling that comes from an easing of unacknowledged anxiety. Others have agitating, disconcerting, or disorienting movements. I take single-view, long clips of movements that interest me. While editing the video, I adjust the colour, tone and texture like I would a painting. The soundtrack is important for creating aural space so I focus on developing the sound.

100 word Artist Statement about the work: Heather Gentleman’s work is narrative in nature, finding inspiration in literature, anthropology, mythology, and symbolism. She approaches her work primarily through painting and drawing, but also works in sculpture, video, writing, interactive installation, audio and performance. She chooses to layer media when it enhances the telling of the story by allowing the viewer a fuller comprehension of the layers of meaning in the work. Imbued with psychological undertones and observation of contemporary culture in a historical context, she explores how ideas, themes and social mores recur and are paralleled from one time period to another and how our understanding of the past is shaped by our own contemporary viewpoint. Characters peer out at the viewer as strangers that belong to a separate, surreal world, telling stories with the sensibility of an intimate conversation, expressing universal motifs that bridge with the personal. Her landscapes could be derivative of Italian Renaissance painting with floating putti or a camp science fiction film. The compositions are often of a centred figure or object that creates a natural mirroring with the viewer which enhances the idea of dialogue, enabling the viewer to see him/herself in the story. Her large scale paintings, by sheer scale, are installations in themselves, engaging the viewer to step into the experience. Their totem like structures have a theatrical feel that embody the physical and deal with the conscious and unconscious, the body and architecture, and space and memory.

Dimensions: 365 x 244 x 5

100 word Artist Statement about the work: Marina Dempster is a sculptural fibre artist engaging in the practice of creating contemporary translations of traditional fine craft. Her sculptural installations are a celebration of the collective human imagination and what healing and expansion are possible when an embodied personal practice meets community. These pieces are part of a series of rug hooked ‘yarn paintings’ of 72” x 24”( yoga mat sized) called "in//habit" intended to be installed and used in variable formations in harmony with the space in which they are exhibited. The magical mats represent a place of belonging for each and every one of us, inviting us to experience the inner resources always available to us when we are engaged in deep inner listening but also the power of witnessing and supporting each others' process. The work speaks to the rewards of both personal ritual and communal practice as an antidote to other numbing habits, addictions and distractions, ultimately courageously finding our gifts and common humanity in the shadows. This crafting ‘makes permanent’, not perfect, creating more ease and receptivity to adaptive growth, and new dimensions of perception and discovery. These universally resonant pieces are an invitation to revere transmutation of shame to grace, fear to love, and woe to wisdom - an undeniable reckoning toward connection. Marina Dempster’s improvised and incidental craft ironically speaks to the obsessive, repetitive and cyclical nature of thought patterns and actions, and the paradox of deliberate navigation and simultaneous ‘letting go’ required for adaptive growth, fluid change and reinvention.

Dimensions: 180 x 60 x 2

100 word Artist Statement about the work: My practice embraces the idea of paradoxes in life and in art. In the past, I have explored issues of the precarity of overlooked structures such as piers and bridges. They are the functional go-between nature and humanity. In my current body of work, Punctuating Place, I consider the nature of impermanent shelters. The attached image shows the environmental context removed yet implied. The structure itself embodies a thrown together, collaged aesthetic that mimics real-life scavenging of found material. I play with the paradox of overlaying sober concepts with vibrant presentations that offer a sense of hopefulness and wonder.

Dimensions: 36 x 36

100 word Artist Statement about the work: My work has recently shifted from painting landscapes to looking at landscape as a vessel that poses visual questions and suggests narrative. This new work is process driven. There is minimal preliminary planning involved. The process maps place through constructing layered passages of mark-making and imaging, of revealing and concealing, of tagging objects and unveiling dialogues. As in a story, a painted narrative is revealed. The intention is to create an ambiguous, immersive environment that promotes a discussion with the viewer.

Dimensions: 91 x 91 x 4

100 word Artist Statement about the work: My work explores life after trauma, specifically life after cancer. After completing chemotherapy I started a journey to reconcile the disconnect between my body, mind and spirit. I refused to live a life in fear, wondering when cancer would return. To gain context outside my personal experience, my work features twelve women in the community who are living life post cancer. Interviews, photo sessions and time spent with these women gave me new perspective as I learned about each woman’s beautiful, resilient spirit. All of them were trying to move forward, recognizing they have been changed by the experience. Through these interactions my role as the artist became abundantly clear - An artist looks deeper. An artist lingers on life’s hard or tragic questions. Instead of moving past the experience, I want to move in it and transform it. I’ve sat in the dark and scary places for so long that eventually the pain dulled and I could feel my way around the dark. I became comfortable in fear, and as soon as I did, it began to melt away. I have truly processed the pain of my experience, and now I’m left with hope, freedom and a comfort I can only refer to as God. I hope Someone You Know allows you to take pause in an always moving life, while opening up the present moment and all of its beauty.

Dimensions: 48 x 129 x 1.5

100 word Artist Statement about the work: This wall-mounted object is one of a series of sculptures called “Scattered” which looks at split attention and non-linear thinking within the creative process. The sculpture is comprised of hundreds of thin, translucent, frayed polymer clay pieces that I see as thoughts which come together into one dynamic entity, or idea. I chose translucent polymer clay, as when it is worked this thinly, captures the newness and fragility of a new mental concept or fleeting idea.

Dimensions: 25 x 17 x 7

100 word Artist Statement about the work: The subject matter in this drawing is a favourite of mine - glass. I inherited this particular piece from my mother, who collected antiques. This cup is so small and delicate I’m always afraid I’ll break it. The change in colour from amber to ruby red in the glass is a patented colour pattern called Amberina......patented in 1883, this colour pattern is achieved by adding gold to the glass and partially reheating it after it annealed. The beauty of glass is timeless. It has been an aesthetic constant for centuries. This work is my attempt to capture the fascination of the colour, clarity and sparkle of glass.

Dimensions: 26.5 x 21

100 word Artist Statement about the work: My work is an attempt to explore the imprint of society on the environment. I am trying to illustrate the shifting balance between man and nature and to investigate how it fluctuates it is affected by migration, activity, and memory. By documenting, and reusing collected imagery, my aim is to acknowledge history but also create new and personal ways of representing the rich interface between past, present and future that challenges any limited definition of commemoration. A reaction to our tendency to treat objects and ideas as consumables has strengthened my interest in abandonment, neglect and disuse as part of the physical landscape.The flawed and the incomplete often become more meaningful than the ideal.

Dimensions: 24 x 54

100 word Artist Statement about the work: As a first- generation Canadian, I often feel out of place, even though I live near my birthplace. Somehow, I’m connected to a distant country I have never seen, one foot always in another landscape. I have a restlessness that draws me repeatedly to edges – of land, of sea, of forests - lured by a distant horizon, perpetually seeking connections; familial, geographically, through time, and in memory. Living in a land that was taken from others, I am preoccupied with inherited ideas of belonging, exploring the physical and psychological meaning of “place’ (guilt, acceptance, ownership) and the stratification of experience.

Dimensions: 66.5 x 104.5 x 10

100 word Artist Statement about the work: This work is about the backgrounds and the underlying tensions, rather than the people that are usually the focus of family photos. Photos are touch stones and mnemonics, owners frequently unable to throw them out, even when it is time to move on from the events depicted. Shed is about grieving and letting go. Constructed from hundreds of old photographs, I began by cutting the backgrounds of the images into small squares, then reassembled them mosaic-like and sewing the pieces together on a semi-industrial sewing machine.. Much of the thread is from vintage spools in family sewing baskets

Dimensions: 305 x 335 x 1

100 word Artist Statement about the work: These three pieces are natural subjects created with natural mediums. When our beehives are empty save for fetid wax, our forests are filled with diseased trees and our very seeds are contaminated will we act? When all hope is lost can there still be light? Biological manipulation alters the natural colour of a flower, strips the seeds from a melon, steals the sweetness from a peach. The human presence clamours to improve its condition whilst dooming itself and sadly not unknowingly. In days to come if biotic pollination is no longer possible how will life on earth continue?

Dimensions: 15 x 31 x 20

100 word Artist Statement about the work: I work in conté on paper, focussing on landscapes of Georgian Bay and north Simcoe County

Dimensions: 11.5 x 48

Dimensions: 72 x 64 x 1.5

100 word Artist Statement about the work: The English garden was intriguing to me as I was able to use the pallet knife to capture the different textures that I visualized for this painting.

Dimensions: 41 x 31 x 5

100 word Artist Statement about the work: My work explores the complexity of human psychology, submerging the viewer into a world which teeters between stability and chaos. I create moments of visual tension, to communicate the confusion, disorientation and discomfort that are brought on by an unexpected anxiety attack. I transport the viewer into unexpected places through layers of intricate mark-making and draw the viewer close to the surface, only to catapult them back into motion. The work evolves through a constant process of erasure and revision; a repeated dialogue between image and instinct, capturing the exchange of energy between myself and the materials I am using.

Dimensions: 226.06 x 223.52 x 0.1

100 word Artist Statement about the work: As science, technology, and digital media continue to influence the trajectory of contemporary art, my current practice addresses the space where simulated abstraction becomes hypereality, referencing a dimension beyond our three. In painting and electronic media, I employ technology to mimic theoretical but non-existent — or even impossible — content. The result is trompe-l'œil of a subject not of our known physical world, aligning the theosophy of abstraction with the worship of the illuminated screen.

Dimensions: 22.5 x 23 x 1

100 word Artist Statement about the work: I have a fundamental interest in plant and animal life, drawing much of my influence from nature. Having spent many years keenly observing animals, plants and trees I believe we should embrace our inherent connection with the natural world. Inspired by colours, landscapes, memories and my immediate surroundings, my work channels the consideration of our relationship with nature through a variety of narratives. Natural elements are often juxtaposed in painterly or sculptural/vertical landscapes to form a narrative. I hope to encourage reflection on our perception of nature and a greater appreciation of conservation and ecology.

Dimensions: 26 x 8 x 8