It started with a painting from Tournon, France, in which I captured a cafe during the midday siesta. I liked the idea that the reflections in the windows captured something of the town but at the same time allowed you to look into the premises, a freezer visible on the far right side. I also captured myself, which is a Where’s Waldo type task. Also each frame of the cafe tended to alter the view, making it almost cubist in the multiple views it offered.
Preparing for the Scugog Studio Tour in May, I wanted to capture something of Port Perry without it following a well-worn path of many who have tried to capture the town. Standing across from the Romanesque building that dominates the main street, I found an unexpected view, also fragmented, in the form of a jewellery store window. In the hour and a half before it sold and got taken away, it got a lot of attention by visitors to my shared space.
I’ve been deliberately looking now, finding that there is a lot of interest in these paintings that take on an all-encompassing view. The most recent, finished last week, was of the Pillars Bar in Dundee, Scotland. We had been visiting the satellite of the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as boarded Scott’s ship that had first sailed to the Antarctic. Afterwards we took a brief stroll through the center of the city, coming across Pillars. The late afternoon light illuminated the buildings around it, making for a perfect visual moment. Like the other paintings, you get a sense of the surrounding community but also what’s inside, in this case a pair of individuals who appeared to be in heavy conversation. I found out afterwards that the Pillar bar is also known for its art collection inside. I did let them know of the painting.
The ways of the art market are certainly mysterious. The New York Times ran a feature today on the work of Alejandro Mario Yilanes, a Bolivian painter inspired by Diego Rivera who moved to NYC in the 1950s, and presumably died there not long after (nobody knows for sure, information on Yilanes is scant). There is little of Yilanes work still in existance, much of it from a cache of art found in a Manhattan Apartment that had been once placed in a dumpster by the landlord and retrieved by a New York City cop. Now many of the larger pieces have been purchased by museums and collectors, the value between $400,000-$1.9 million US. As usual, the artist is long deceased now that his ship has finally come in. Looking at the work, it is hard to believe that anyone would simply throw it away. I’ve written previously about artists passing away and much of their career output simply disappearing for lack of a home for the work.
Last year we were away in Scotland for October and about half of November, so I missed Art Toronto. I learned this week that Royal Bank is no longer a sponsor, although they will still have a presence at the fair. This year’s show seems to be dominated by galleries primarily from Toronto and Montreal — not exactly a surprise given the turbulence in the art market in recent years. There are other galleries taking place from across Canada as well as from the US, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Europe. It takes place from October 29 – November 1 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building. Can’t wait!
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