For Immediate Release

2010 Scholarship/Fellowship Exhibitions ‹ November 4 to 27, 2010
Artist talks: Thursday, November 4, 6-7 pm followed by Opening Reception
from 7-9 pm

Shannon Gerard: Unspent Love, or, Things I Wish I Told You
Nadine Bariteau: Consecrated Multitude
Tobias Williams: Ecce Cheeto

Toronto, ON ­ October 2010 ­ Open Studio is pleased to present the 2010
Scholarship/Fellowship Exhibitions from November 4 to 27, 2010 by artists
Shannon Gerard (Nick Novak Fellowship), Nadine Bariteau (Donald OıBorn
Family Scholarship), and Tobias Williams (Don Phillips Scholarship). Each
year, Open Studio awards three scholarships/fellowships, providing artists
working in print media with both professional support and access to studio
facilities to create new work during a one-year period. All three artists
will give illustrated talks about their work and the progress of their
projects over the year on Thursday, November 4 at 6 pm at Open Studio,
followed by an opening reception. As Toronto-based writer, filmmaker and
artist Joel Elliott points out in the accompanying essay, the common thread
between these three exhibitions is their engagement with the everyday, both
in form and content.

In the Open Studio Gallery, Shannon Gerardıs Unspent Love, or, Things I Wish
I Told You pairs graphic novel-style images with text in a multi-media
bookwork that collects twenty illustrated vignettes in one volume and
incorporates screenprint, letterpress, digital print, and bookbinding.
Excerpts from the bookwork will also be exhibited as larger prints on the
walls of the gallery. The stories present quotidian moments centred on
intimate themes such as loss, fear, human frailty and hope. Unspent Love
recently won First Prize in the Graphic Narrative category in This
Magazine's Great Canadian Literary Hunt 2010. An excerpt of the project will
be published in the November/ December 2010 issue of This Magazine. A
companion installation, presented outside of YYZ Artistıs Outlet, will
evolve the Unspent Love project for another 12 months.

Nadine Bariteauıs Consecrated Multitude, will be shown in Open Studioıs
Print Sales Gallery. An in-depth investigation that ironically glorifies the
mass production of plastic water bottles, the work simultaneously shines a
critical light on societyıs blind acceptance of the ubiquitous objects.
Bringing together work in diverse media, including printmaking, sculpture,
photography and installation, Consecrated Multitude engages with
environmental concerns, but with a sense of play and poetry.

Presented in the George Gilmour Membersı Gallery, Tobias Williamsı work Ecce
Cheeto also ironically glorifies a mass produced product ­ the familiar
orange snack food of the title. Featuring large format images of Cheetos
incorporated into lightboxes and gilded wallpaper, Williamsı Cheetos become
objects that are regarded with both disgust and reverence. The screenprinted
wallpaper, light boxes and prints use the nutritionally questionable snacks
to explore the value of pure aesthetic joy and childhood reminiscence in a
world created by cynical advertising campaigns and corn subsidies.

The work created by the three 2009-10 Scholarship/Fellowship recipients
during their yearlong residencies at Open Studio, while very different,
shares similar concerns. In referencing everyday objects and activities,
Gerard, Bariteau and Williams all use the quotidian as a jumping off point
for exploring a variety of political, aesthetic and emotional concerns.

Open Studio thanks The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation and the
Donald OıBorn Family for their kind support of the 2009-10
Scholarship/Fellowship Program. To download a copy of the exhibition
brochure, including full artist and writer biographies, please visit:
http://www.openstudio.on.ca/images_site/scholarship-2010-brochure.pdf. For
high-resolution images or interviews, please email sara@openstudio.on.ca.

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Open Studio gratefully acknowledges the support of The City of Toronto
through the Toronto Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts and the
Ontario Arts Council. Open Studio also acknowledges the generous support of
its members and numerous foundations, corporations and individuals.

Open Studio
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto, ON  M5V 3A8
T/F: 416-504-8238  
E: office@openstudio.on.ca
W: http://www.openstudio.on.ca
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12 - 5 p.m.

Media Contact: 
Sara Kelly, Associate Director
sara@openstudio.on.ca.

--
Sara Kelly
Associate Director

Open Studio
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104
Toronto ON  M5V 3A8
T/F: 416-504-8238
E: sara@openstudio.on.ca
W: http://www.openstudio.on.ca