"Gillian Iles: Suggestions for Achieving A Successful Childhood And an Ideal Life"
2003-11-29 until 2003-12-21
Kabat Wrobel Gallery
Toronto, ON, CA Canada

Suggestions for achieving a successful childhood and an ideal life is the result of having perused copious amounts of random images from personal photo collection, magazine advertisements and web postings. Patterns began to emerge. A generic ideal begins to manifest itself. Invariably, people or a personality was the intended subject, but that was not the source of the pattern and regularity. It was the regularity of certain backdrops, costuming and contexts within these random photo sources, which began to represent a desired ideal. Everyone wanted to be associated with certain context and imagery. Photographs are a physical record of a person‚s identity and existence. They are a selective and idealized portrayal of a subject.

Suggestions for achieving a successful childhood and an ideal life draws conclusions about our culture‚s view of the ideal from the rate of occurrence of various imagery in these photographs. Iconic drawings have been created which are representations of some of the most frequent imagery. The people, originally intended as the subject of the photo sources, have been removed. It is the background and adornments in the photographs that provide us with the desired version of identity that the subjects want to convey. The subject themselves are little more than a means of specificity.

Drawing medium was chosen because its nature contrasts with the superficial imagery. Drawings by nature convey an intimacy and humanity, which is compelling. The format, content and design of the work mimic the iconic nature of advertising, but the medium of drawing implies the individual subtleties of idealism.

Gillian Iles is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design. She exhibits locally and nationally 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. 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.

IMAGE
Gillian Iles
Courtesy of History Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects

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