The Creatures: Collective Gallery and Studio opened an outstanding new exhibit called Contemporary Countenance. The exhibit challenged the idea of the classic portrait, enlightened audience members on countless subjects, and featured works from Shanna Van Maurik, Craig Skinner, Stella Cade, Kevin Columbus, Elly Smallwood, Rosalind Breen, Susie Julia and Anthony Smerek. These talented young artists truly pushed themselves, both individually and collectively, to make this show perfectly balanced in aesthetics and subject matter. To create this balance, artists used a wide variety of colours, forums and mediums to convey strong visual ideas. As audience members viewed these works, key topics and arguments such as identity, sexuality, modern day beauty, happiness, personal isolation within digital societies and beauty as a superiority became undeniable clear.
This extensive range of questions and statements was presented perfectly to audience members by curator, Erin Kjaer, who had spent months carefully planning the show. For Kjaer, the objective of this show was to have an exhibition where artists could describe what portraiture meant to them. Kjaer was also able to create a show where each artist had the freedom to describe how portraiture has changed as a genre over time.
One of the most noticeable changes to the genre was the influence of the subjects on both the artist and the viewer. When looking at the works of each artist, it’s more than clear that the people within each portrait deliver a unique message to the viewer. Yet, when you look at the root of every work, the subject is always a person. This means there is something about each person that inspires or drives the artist to present a specific message. Shanna Van Maurik’s work is a great example. Van Maurik makes strong suggestions against beauty and its ability to give superiority. By painting over women from magazine cut-outs, Van Maurik attempts to show these models in their rawest form. This is interesting because it begs the question, if Van Maurik had seen these same women in a different environment or light, would her work be driven in a different direction? While the answer to this question could never be answered, it goes without saying that every artist within this show was deeply inspired by their subjects.
During the exhibition’s opening, the galleries owner, Darren Lea, revealed that he was extremely pleased with how the show turned out, and
also suggested that he would continue looking for great work by other emerging artists. The objective of the Creatures: Collective Galley and Studio is to have new works on display every week and to insure that artists from all categories have a chance to put on a show as interesting as Contemporary Countenance.
