13 June to 13 July 2013
Opening Thursday 13 June from 6 to 8

Nadia Belerique, Eli Bornowsky, Sarah Nasby, Jillian Kay Ross
What you call Space is really nothing but a vast Plane

What you call Space is really nothing but a vast Plane brings together the works of four artists to consider methodologies of representation and perception. The featured works defy traditional categorization of discipline: paintings are also sculptures, sculptures are also photographs, and photographs are also paintings. With the uncertainty of medium, the works also consequently confuse the space expected with the space depicted. The result is a concurrent occupation between two or three dimensions, whilst also subtly hinting to other physical possibilities of existence. 

Nadia Belerique’s new photographic images were created with a digital image scanner and discarded rubylith filters from the Toronto Star’s archives, which were previously used to manipulate photographs in a pre-Photoshop era. Her careful control of the light allowed to enter the scanner bed creates illusions of depth, while inclusions of fingerprints and other debris originally found on the scanner’s glass emphasizes the image’s superficiality.

Eli Bornowsky’s paintings from the Reading seriescentrally feature collaged sculptural elements of balsa wood and found objects. Yet the works maintain their painterly integrity as Bornowsky’s interests in colour, pattern and abstraction unapologetically dominate despite their relegated position as periphery upon the picture plane.

Sarah Nasby’s two-dimensional sculptures appropriate common graphic forms utilized by illustrators and designers to convey positive emphasis. Arranged upon the compositional plane of a grid, Nasby’s nimbuses and swooshes communicate a visually associative agenda, yet are otherwise content-less compositions.

Jillian Kay Ross maintains both a physical and digital painting practice. Her new works occupy both realms, confusing what is real and only appears to be real. Beginning with source imagery culled from the Internet’s never-ending archive, Ross journeys her work through a myriad of self-referential transformations, both virtual and material.  

The exhibition’s title is a phrase borrowed from Edwin Abbott Abbott’s 1884 satirical novella, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. The words were spoken by a Sphere as part of a failed attempt to convince a Square of the existence of the third dimension.

Toronto-based Nadia Belerique received her MFA from the University of Guelph and has recently exhibited at Narwhal Projects, Daniel Faria Gallery, Xpace Cultural Centre and the Drake Hotel. Eli Bornowsky lives in Vancouver and is currently an MFA candidate at Bard College, New York. He has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Burnaby Art Gallery in British Columbia. Sarah Nasby is based in Toronto and received her MFA from NSCAD University. Earlier this year, she presented a solo exhibition at Convenience Gallery. Jillian Kay Ross recently graduated with a BFA from OCAD University and currently lives in Toronto. She has previously exhibited at Angell Gallery, Spark Contemporary Art Space in Syracuse and Camel Art Space in Brooklyn.

Curated by Petrina Ng & Rachel Wallace.