"War Stories for Children and Art Stories for Adults: Recent Paintings and Sculptures byTony Calzetta"
2001-07-20 until 2001-09-09
Chatham Cultural Centre, Thames Art Gallery
Chatham, ON, CA Canada

Ten large-scale canvases and 3 life-size cardboard sculptures showcase Toronto artist Tony Calzetta’s idiosyncratic and engaging imagery. Calzetta invites his lines to dance, zoom, fly, gesticulate, spin and toddle. Color and texture are vital to his paintings, but it’s the idiosyncratic drawing that gives them punch. In the sculptures, lines jump into a third dimension and wriggle to life.

This exhibition has been organized by the Thames Art Gallery and will circulate to galleries in the Yukon, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. A 24 page catalogue with color plates and essays by Liz Wylie and Kate Regan is available.

Excerpt from the Tony Calzetta: Line Dancing by Kate Regan

Although he emphasizes that his work is not really to do with paint, since he draws first in graphite or charcoal and then colors in with oil sticks and/or acrylics, Calzetta in fact has developed a distinctive and subtle use of color and texture. If he is not painterly in the sense of piling on the pigment, he is a master of tone and mood. The brightness of his primary palette is enriched by contrasting blacks and greys. Frequently he creates a delicate shimmering effect by scratching, cross-hatching or overpainting his background fields. The radiant play of light on these canvases deepens their drama.

IMAGE:
Tony Calzetta
Mother Hubbard Arriving at the Cupboard
Knocks Two Times Because Marcel Duchamp Lives There,
1998

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Canada

Other Important Exhibitions in Canada