ANNIE ONYI CHEUNG explores language, culture and gender in 'Mi'

>ANNIE ONYI CHEUNG: Mi

Installation and video work presented at Fleishman Gallery

October 16th to November 20th, Opening Reception October 16th 7-9pm

Annie Onyi Cheung’s work in time-based and three-dimensional media explores themes of memory, identity, shame and vulnerability, as well as generational and cultural difference. She is drawn to concepts that can be investigated through experiential environments, unravelling imagery and narratives, and bridging gaps between disparate perspectives. Her art manifests as combinations of performance, video and installation.

This emerging artist is a recent graduate of Art History and Studio Art from the University of Toronto. The Fleishman Gallery is very pleased to present her first solo exhibition.
Please visit: www.onyi-ajar.com

The exhibition, Mi, includes a wall-mounted paper grid which documents calligraphy practice of elementary-level traditional Chinese vocabulary and family vernacular, examining each character’s construction and pronunciation. The video component, Untitled (She Me), features a dream-like narrative that is projected as a continuous loop. The video, presented as a triptych, attempts to reveal the various manifestations of femininity that compete within certain social structures such as family, gender and nationality. The video contains no dialogue, instead opting to communicate through a vernacular of gesture to find relationships between tradition, gender and identity. The subtitle, ‘She-Me’ refers both to the phonetic Chinese pronunciation of ‘wash rice’ as well as the self-reflective quality of the video’s world of interiors.

The installation will also be accompanied by a third element, a performance piece to take place during the opening reception. The live performance featuring both the artist and her mother, will further explore the complicated and conflicting notions of femininity and womanhood that influence and inform the artist’s relationships with her mother and with her cultures.

KAREN AUGUSTINE INTERVIEW w/Leslie Peters: To Serve and Protect

> LESLIE PETERS: TO SERVE AND PROTECT
talismans for the home - an interview with Leslie Peters
This is a very wonderful series. And I have wanted, yearned, for an interview with an artist – both brave enough, and in touch enough – who would speak more to the metaphysical expressed in one's art practice, for an artist to speak to the experience of being an artist healer. And finally....

Read more at http://www.PossessionSessions.com
POSSESSION: All that is sacred in contemporary art

CHRISTINA BATTLE investigates the changing natural environment

>CHRISTINA BATTLE: as storms take shape in the distance...
Opening: Friday, July 6th, 7-9pm
Exhibition runs to August 4th, 2007

Combining works on paper, film and video, as storms take shape in the distance… investigates the changing natural environment by imagining moments
when major storms strike.

Pulling from footage gathered by storm researchers and chasers, imagery is re-worked to consider the impacts of major weather patterns. The artworks re-create, collect and preserve existing ecological systems while imagining the impacts such events could have on the overall natural balance. Setting aside the effects of specific severe weather events which were an inspiration to the work, such as Hurricane Katrina (USA, 2005) and the South Asian Tsunami (Bandeh Aceh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka & others, 2004), as storms take shape in the distance…instead concentrates on the systems themselves and the precise moments when such storms hit. Reflecting on the global effects of natural disasters, the presented works seek to remind us how forceful the natural environment can be and how easily it can render us powerless.

Biography: With a B.Sc. in Environmental Biology from the University of Alberta and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, Christina currently lives and works in Toronto. Her artworks have been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), the National Film Board of Canada and the Toronto Arts Council. She has screened her films internationally in festivals and galleries including: The Images Festival (Toronto), The London Film Festival (London, England); The International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands); White Box (New York City); The Foreman Art Gallery at Bishops University (Sherbrooke, QB); The City of Toronto’s Nuit Blanche 2006 and in the 2006 Whitney Biennial: “Day for Night” (New York City).

For more info visit: www.cbattle.com

LESLIE PETERS shares beautifully intricate and ornate talismans

> LESLIE PETERS: talismans for the home

Opens March 28th 6-9pm

At Fleishman Gallery from March 28th - May 1st

Talismans For The Home is a series of small sculptural objects, created from items found and collect

ed within nature and the domestic environment. Each talisman is formed from sacred objects: domestic items imbued with meaning. For example, the artist’s great aunt’s spoon collection, her paternal grandmother’s silverware, relics collected from her maternal grandmother’s abandoned home, objects discarded or lost, found on beaches, in the streets, at the local goodwill and garage sales, gifted items, bits of glass and stones. These contemporary artifacts are combined with other cherished items found within nature; sticks, feathers, bones, seeds, shells and are ultimately bound together using twine, wire, leather and thread. Essentially these small sculptures are woven curios that contain the combined recollections and emotions of the individual artifact and the “charge” and intention generated by the artist through the creation process.

Toronto based artist Leslie Peters has been actively working in video, multi-channel installation, as well as curating exhibitions and coordinating cultural events for the past 12 years. Alongside her video practice she has been producing sculptural works that have rarely been exhibited.

Leslie was the featured Spotlight Canadian Artist at the 2004 Images Festival in Toronto where a retrospective of her work was shown and her installation becoming was premiered at the WARC gallery (Womens’ Art Resource Centre). The retrospective then toured to Peru where she presented her work in Lima and Cusco at the VAE8 Festival and in the fall of 2006 the retrospective was presented at Anthology Film Archives, New York.