It is the nineteenth iteration of Art Mûr's annual survey of art being produced in graduate programs across the country. 13 institutes are taking part this time, and the work of 33 students pursuing their MFAs is showcased across two floors of the gallery. As usual, there are paintings and sculptures as well as textiles with painting dominating.
One of the more interesting things about this annual event has been the extent to which it tends to deprive artists of the various crutches they rely upon to maintain the "communicative" aspect of their work, namely supplementary text. They are in a certain sense denuded and left more vulnerable, set in potentially strange relations in this space alien from the studios of the artists or their intended fate as the aspect of an exhibition.
Unlike most survey exhibitions, there is no justification offered for any of the selections and no clear unifying factor, which can make it all feel rather random. This contextualization alters the works themselves, and it also makes the experience of them more like opening the perfume samplers you get when ordering from discount companies or a beer flight selected by the barista and left on your table without them consulting you first.
In previous years I always made sure to look
artists up and read their rationalizations for their work, but this year
have not bothered because it would be a disservice to the exhibition's
autonomization from intentionality.
The exhibition spans two floors with the bottom comprised primarily of (more or less) abstract work and the second floor of (more or less) representational work. The second floor in particular is well set up, with the works situated in ways that often echo one another and the minimal use of darkly painted walls successfully setting some of the paintings off. The first floor feels far more scattered.
As is, the works tend to operate mostly in terms of mood. There are some large magic realist works, some trashy therapy stuff, and some stuff that looks like it dropped from an old issue of Juxtapoz. As with last year, I will only provide a few of the highlights.
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Sampson T. Vassallo [Memorial]: graphic and displaying an impressive sense of scope. The articulation of the space overtakes the content which feels more like filler in this context. Seems like cover art.
Sylvia Trotter-Ewens [Concordia]: wistfully presented decaying leaves etc. with moderately romantic titles. Very effective use of colour and a condensed sense of atmosphere.
Mathieu Lef Bouchard [Laval]: likely the most comic work in the show. Small sculptures made of found and driftwood assembled to resemble minimal abstractions and painted in primary colours. There's a terse "statement" quality to them that makes them kind of charming and old-fashioned.
Olivier Roscanu [UQAM]: in a more overtly comic vein, these acrylic paintings resemble Photoshop collages, deliberately unfinished, offering the possibility to display a range of painterly techniques while providing some vague and slightly grotesque statement.
Hamid Amiri [Concordia]: very brown feeling, flirting with 19th c. Orientalist painting style and not in any way that seems particularly conceptual. Just nice wall paintings.
Elisa Vita [York]: attentively displayed against dark walls, these lush dark-hued scenes of the forest avoid the easy pitfalls of cuteness or natural charm and feel densely constructed and heavy.
Lucy Gill [Concordia]: stretched fruit leather hanging on a minimal steel armature. It feels like all that "trauma" art that used to be popular and stretched (real or synthetic) skin, fat, etc. over such armatures, but now the index of human suffering is basically an artisanal Fruit Roll-Up. I doubt it was intended this caustically but that's how it comes off.
Colin Canary [Concordia]: acrylic collages in varying sizes, loosely abstracted from floral imagery, and sitting comfortably with Sylvia Trotter-Ewens' work. Also wistful and romantic, registering almost like decaying wallpaper.
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