Dwight Baird was born and raised in Huntingdon, Quebec, a small town southwest of Montreal, ...more
Title: Title - Movement in Twilight, Medium - Acrylic on wood panel Dimensions - 24” x
Size: 24in x 48in
Media: Acrylic on wood panel
Kathleen Slavin's work became stronger after a dramatic vision change, a few years ago, that ...more
Title: Passageways - Mixed media on Terra skin, matted , framed 18x24" $500
Media:
Susan Gosevitz is an award winning artist and an elected member of the Ontario Society ...more
Title: Muskoka Silhouette_24" x 48"
Size: 24" x 48"
Media: Acrylic on Canvas
Nik Semenoff is a world class preeminent printmaker, but his vast knowledge of the processes ...more
Title: A Flower for Sydney, Original Waterless Lithograph, 22x30"
Michael Brokop's creations of art are spiritual, emotional, and empowering pieces of work. He ...more
Title: 3 Masks
Deborah Czernecky has a life long passion for painting and nature, using the Canadian landscape ...more
Title: GROUP THERAPY
Size: 18" x 36"
Media: Oil on Gallery Canvas
Serge V. Richard is a multidisciplinary visual artist who graduated in graphic arts from Holland ...more
Title: Internum Fortitudinem
Size: 365cm x 5.5cm x 3.7m
Media: Installation, Wood, Metal and Glass
Anne More is an award winning artist. She was born in Argentina and came to ...more
Title: Muskoka Area
Size: 24x36 inches
The abstract work of Susan Lott expresses a fresh exploration of surface and texture unhindered ...more
Title: WINDY HILLS, ACRYLIC
Size: 12" X 36" (image cropped)
Media: Acrylic on Canvas
Rick Gallant's passion for art comes from an innate desire to capture the boundless beauty ...more
Title: Cyprus
Size: 22 x 30"
Media: Acrylic on canvas , Framed
There are no notices at this time.
The National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) invites oil and acrylic painters..
View notice
The Allied Arts Council of Pincher Creek strives to host thought-provoking exhibitions that..
View notice
My carved coffee tables and wood carvings are in the window at IMAGINE..
View notice
Call for Instructors
Proposals Due March 5th 2021
The NB College of Craft & Design..
View notice
Our annual winter show of large works is now on display at the..
View notice
WE’RE BACK!!
After a long and lonely year, 2020, Carbon Point Gallery and it's..
View notice
Visit Gallery Arcturus – vicariously:
https://arcturus.ca/genesis/
“a village dreams” has installations by deborah harris
--
Up..
View notice
The Chelsea International Photography Competition (CIPC) honors our gifted talents all over the..
View notice
We are currently looking for 40-50 artists to feature in our next issue...
View notice
Fusion Art is now accepting entries for the 12th Artist Spotlight Solo Art..
View notice
Fusion Art invites submissions for the 5th Annual Colors art competition for an..
View notice
Fusion Art invites submissions for the 3rd Into the Wild Online Art Competition.
2D..
View notice
Three paid digital residencies available in 2021.
Deadline for submissions: March 10, 2021 at..
View notice
Are you a New Westminster-based artist with a body of 2D work, who..
View notice
I am looking for someone to illustrate a poetry book. ..
View notice
The Boynes Emerging Artist Award is an independent artist-run International 2D art competition..
View notice
Meet the artists at a Virtual Opening Reception and tour of the exhibition.
Edzy..
View notice
Innovate Grant is now accepting submissions for the Winter 2021 Cycle. Innovate Grant..
View notice
| Theme:
Winter is the coldest season of the year. Containing the shortest..
View notice
Deadline: February 26, 2021
Tuckamore Press is seeking applications for our Mini Print-by-Mail Publication..
View notice
CALL FOR ARTISTS: VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2021
Venice | April 01/02 – May 07,..
View notice
We invite emerging, mid-career and professional artists to apply to participate in our..
View notice
Announcing The Salt Spring National Art Prize's 2021/22 prize awards of $41,000!
CALL FOR..
View notice
Looking for a job in the ARTS in Canada? We have thousands of..
View notice
}
Roland Brener
Olga Korper GalleryToronto, Ontariountil March 5, 2003.
Endsville is a village of tiny cardboard buildings, illuminated from within
and wired with an interactive soundscape. Walking into the gallery is a bit
like coming upon a lilliputian suburb at night. A similar installation,
Capital Z, was installed at (and subsequently purchased by) Canada's
National Gallery.
Roland Brener retired from teaching at University of Victoria three years
ago. Then, with his wife Dama, Brener took his sailboat, Reality, out for a
two-year cruise. Last year he took a break and left the boat, flying from
Cuba to Tokyo . There, in collaboration with Yoko Takashima, a former
student from Victoria, Brener installed Endsville at the NTT
InterCommunication Centre in Tokyo Opera City Tower.
Now he's back and just about to ship his three latest sculptures to the Olga
Korper Gallery in Toronto (with whom he has shown since 1988). I dropped by
Brener's Fairfield home to see them before they went.
Starr, a sculpture by Roland Brener, wood and ceramic, to be shown at the
Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto until March 5, 2003.
Roland Brener was born in South Africa in 1942. After studying at St.
Martin's School of Art in London, he taught at the University of Victoria.
In 1988 Brener represented Canada at the Venice Biennale.
'During the time I was living on my boat,' Brener told me, 'my computer was
my laboratory. And I was listening to the BBC news, and responding to things
of the moment. Cloning was in the news, and Siamese twins.' Using an
elementary figure drawing program called Poser, Brener created Starr, two
interpenetrating figures with a common head.
The two/one are as big as a large child, and perch on a green rail, like
some monstrous parrot. 'Olga Korper said OYuck!', Brener noted. 'I never
know what's taboo. The issues were offensive. But when I put my own face on
it, she had to accept it'.
Beside Starr is Until Soon, a larger-than-life chair whose back is
penetrated by a huge breast. Facing it stand little models of Brener, naked
at 7 years old and, dressed in a suit, at 21. They stand on the edge of the
chair like divers about to do a backward half gainer. 'I wanted their
footing insecure,' Brener added. 'The idea of memory and yearning for what's
gone, the mother who's gone.'
These mannikins are carved of solid wood, with face and hands of ceramic.
All is softly painted. 'I was very careful to paint this,' Brener explained.
'I wanted a dreamy, ethereal quality. I had trouble with the eyes - I must
have done them 50 times!'.
It seemed remarkable to me that Brener is more and more becoming a
figurative sculptor, even to the point of hand-painting doll-sized models of
himself as a naked seven year old.
'You can do that stuff when you¹re older,' he averred. 'My vanity has
diminished to the point where I can deal with myself without looking like a
movie star or a hero.' It surprised me when I thought back on the figurative
aspects of his sculptural career.
According to Brener, his whole training has been figurative at its basis.
Anthony Caro, his mentor and teacher in Britain, was dedicated to a totally
abstract modernism yet took his students to study the Parthenon Freize at
the British Museum. Anwyay, Brener feels no particular allegiance to any
school. 'I'm loose enough now,' he commented, 'not aligned with modernism or
any other -ism. I am letting go.'
At this point we were joined by Grant Watson, another former student of
Brener's. Watson has been his been fabricating the ideas for some years and,
increasingly, is also Brener¹s collaborator.
The two were packing the new work for shipping to Toronto. Once a
shipwright and an artist in his own right, Watson has just the skills to
complement Brener. And though he appeared mild-mannered to me, Brener calls
him 'a wild animal!'.
With the experience of a lifetime, Brener finds he can now 'preconcieve' his
sculptures before he begins. He then designs them on his computer and prints
them out for Watson to build.
Watson, for his part, has never touched a computer or even received an
e-mail. He makes an effort to cut down unnecessary communications in his
life. 'If I don¹t get any Christmas cards,' he quipped, 'I am a happy guy.'
Together these two refine the ideas as they become manifest. At the moment,
they are at work on a half-million dollar sculptural commission in Toronto.
This commission will inhabit the centre plaza between two 26-storey
high-rises, in the Radio City Project beside the National Ballet School.
Looking down from your office tower, you¹ll see a cluster of 59 little
houses, each one of seven different designs. Within, the lights are on at
all tmes. From above they have shapes reminiscent of letters of the
alphabet.
The little buildings are stainless steel, with rounded edges and and
fluorescent lighting. Some are stacked, all are positioned imaginatively,
and they will be exactly seat height. 'They make very nice benches,' Brener
commented, 'and they are nice to transit through.' The units are being made
in Victoria by Specific Mechanical, whose main work is actually making
custom brewing tanks.
'Every city in the world's going to have one!' Brener effused. 'Helsinki,
Siberia...'. And he just might be right. He's just one of a number of
world-famed artists who build their artworks in Victoria and make their
reputations elsewhere.
__________________________________________________
Copyright © 2002 Robert Amos
Robert Amos is an artist and art writer who lives in Victoria, B. C.. He can be contacted by
e-mail
and you can view his paintings at
www.robertamos.com