Opening Reception
Thursday November 1st 6:00-9:00 pm
1313 Queen Street West, Toronto
Exhibition will be on view until November 11th.
Gallery hours: Wednesday to Sunday 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm
(416) 536-6778
Press Release - Lion Mouse
Exhibition by Veronika Szkudlarek at Gallery 1313
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Press Release
Lion mouse
Exhibition by Veronika Szkudlarek
Gallery 1313 is pleased to present Lion Mouse, an exhibition of new paintings by Veronika Szkudlarek. The exhibition will open with a reception for the artist on Thursday, November 1st from 6:00 to 9:00 pm and will be on view through November 11th, 2012 at 1313 Queen St. West, Toronto.
The paintings in Lion Mouse were made in Szkudlarek’s studios in Brooklyn and Jerusalem. The works included in this exhibition highlight three years of her large abstract oil paintings. Expressed through her praise of color, the paintings are about the process of experimentation. Szkudlarek’s work explores themes of newness and familiarity, conveying some of the ineffable emotions of the foreigner as well as the fears and the exhilaration of the emigrant and traveler.
Szkudlarek’s highly intuitive paintings are made with gestural layers of thin oils and large brushes. The process informs the work and each painting is a discovery of the relationship between the paint and the surface. The transparency or translucency of each pigment is expertly manipulated to create tension and perspective. The paintings are bright and visceral.
The title Lion Mouse is a double entendre. It makes reference to Lev Myshkin, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel ‘The Idiot’. Myshkin is a holy fool, a saintly stranger, who has traveled from afar. He is beautiful but guileless and must navigate through an intricate fabric of foreign expectations. The title also alludes to the contradictions between a fierce lion and a timid mouse, mirroring the artist’s feelings on the process of painting
Veronika Szkudlarek was born in Canada. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in New York City and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal. Her work has been exhibited internationally and reviewed and collected in North America. The New York Times art-critic Ken Johnson included Szkudlarek in the 2010 Pratt Symposium for emerging artists. Reviewing her solo show at Gallery 1313 in 2008,Gary Michael Dault, art critic for The Globe and Mail wrote that “…artist Veronika Szkudlarek has already chalked up enough experiences to fuel a dozen careers in painting”. Szkudlarek is the recipient of the Outstanding Merit Award from Pratt Institute.
photos from the opening!