Patterns of Growth - Toni Losey
Woven Woods - Lorraine Roy
Mary E. Black Gallery
1061 Marginal Rd. Suite 140, Halifax, NS
Opening: Thursday July 4, 6pm
On view: July 5 - August 25, 2019
FREE ADMISSION
Tuesday - Friday: 9am - 5pm
Saturday & Sunday: 11am - 4pm
The Mary E Black invites you to the opening reception for two side-by-side exhibitions of new bodies of work --Patterns of Growthby Halifax-based ceramicist Toni Losey andWoven Woodsby textile artist Lorraine Roy from Southwestern Ontario.
These two interlinked exhibitions explore the relationship of organic forms. Toni Losey, with her experimental and innovative wheel-turned shapes, creates anamorphic structures layered with thick skins of glaze. The sculptures inPatterns of Growthlook soft to the touch but are in fact encrusted with hard texture and nodules. They seem to jump to life reaching their multiple ambiguous appendages outwards and upwards into the air around them.
Lorraine Roy renders ecosystems from fabric and thread inWoven Woods, each circular quilt is an enclosed story of an interconnected forest. Guided by her horticultural background Roy uses textiles to illustrate her research into the “exquisitely balanced symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and tree roots”. Writing beautifully about the subject of her work she says “in the top six inches of the forest floor lies a vast and flourishing communication system as old as photosynthesis itself.”
There is a lightness to the works from both Roy and Losey that plays off one another through their organic shapes, colors and textures. Each artist, working in entirely different media, evokes an intelligent natural world with which we are in an ever evolving relationship.
The opening reception forWoven WoodsandPatterns of Growthwill be at the Mary E. Black Gallery on Thursday July 4 at 6 pm with opening remarks at 6:30. Both artists will be present. Along side these exhibits we will also be celebrating the launch of Tyshan Wright’s Craft LAIR residency.
Thanks to the Ontario Arts Council/Conseil Des Arts De L'Ontario for supporting the creation of Lorraine Roy's body of work in Woven Woods.