Building on the Edge

Amy Shackleton's newest paintings are inspired by her recent road trip through the American Southwest. For over two weeks Amy explored breathtaking scenery in Zion National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon, Lake Powell, Horseshoe Bend, Monument Valley and The Grand Canyon. 

Amy states, "While hiking through the Grand Canyon, from rim to rim, I couldn’t help but imagine a city within its walls. In this series, I perch buildings from Toronto, Vancouver and Las Vegas atop canyons from Utah, Arizona and Nevada."

Artist Statement  
         I envision post-industrial worlds where healthy sustainable relationships exist between man and the environment. My paintings are intended to portray urban life at its best, demonstrating ways that we can work with nature rather than against it. I explore continually evolving approaches to preserving our environment, living more efficiently and using fewer natural resources. My art suggests how we can implement innovative solutions for city planning and development with minimal impact on surrounding habitats.

         This synthesis of ideas is manifested in how I paint. I apply paint with squeeze bottles and spin each canvas to build layers of straight and organic lines. As in real life construction, the architectural aspects of my work are calculated, measured and controlled in order to assure precise locations of each line. As in nature, the environmental elements are more spontaneous, unpredictable and liquid. I achieve these effects by dripping paint, using a level, spraying water and rapidly spinning each canvas.  

October 2014 - "Collision Yangon" by Andrew Rowat

All photographs for "Collision Yangon" were meticulously shot on 4x5 or 8x10 inch negatives. 

"Shooting only large format film (4x5 and 8x10) I wanted to use a tool that was physically aligned with the character and age of what I was photographing. The large format process is a physically demanding enterprise, but ultimately yields negatives suitable for extreme enlargement while maintaining rich detail." -Andrew Rowat

Elaine Fleck culled through hundreds of Andrew's large format images in order to curate ten photographs that go directly to the heart of the story - "Collision Yangon", at the Elaine Fleck Gallery for the month of October. 

Andrew Rowat’s portraits have appeared in Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, his travel work regularly appears in Conde Nast Traveler and Travel & Leisure, and his architecture and lifestyle work finds its way into the pages of Wallpaper, Monocle, and Dwell. His profile features have appeared in Esquire, and GQ.

Andrew Rowat’s fine art is represented by the Elaine Fleck Gallery.

- I first visited Yangon (formerly Rangoon) in Myanmar (formerly Burma) in the Fall of 2012 while on assignment for WSJ, the style magazine for the Wall Street Journal. I was charged with capturing the colonial architecture in the city and was immediately struck by some of the similarities between Yangon and Shanghai – a city I had called home for almost eight years.

I had moved to Shanghai in 2002 just as China was really starting to explode on to the world scene – it was becoming an economic powerhouse, its art was starting to be collected seriously, and the architectural projects that were getting the green light couldn’t have been built anywhere else in the world. It was a wild and wooly time for the next eight years as I lived at this intersection of change – with the world coming to China’s doorstep and China playing the role of self-assured debutante on the global stage. 

Whole neighbourhoods were razed in the name of progress and development as architecturally unique districts with all of their attendant history were lost. When I first arrived in Shanghai there were three subway lines, and when I left eight years later there were 13. It was a breakneck pace and one that has slowed little today.

My experience in Shanghai sensitized me to the importance of capturing the essence of a place before it is completely paved over.

To be sure, Yangon is not Shanghai, nor will it ever be, but here you have two cities on a river. Two cities with a deep British Colonial past. Two cities whose river banks still bears testament to their former British rulers with hulking grand buildings. Twenty years ago Shanghai’s Pudong riverbank was still rice paddies, whereas today it is the financial heart of the city and home to a forest of some of the tallest buildings in the world. Yangon’s opposite bank is still undeveloped with rice paddies stretching as far as the eye can see and a primitive ship building and repair operation dominating the landscape. You will find no buildings above two stories. This is a city on the cusp – the change is upon it.

Burma itself is a country of collisions: transitioning from 50 years of dictatorship (1962-2011) to some sort of hybrid democracy; a pre-dominantly Buddhist country driven by deep religious differences and sectarian violence, often perpetrated against Muslims. It is a country that is a proxy battleground for China, Japan, and the US – a modern day Great Game playing out in South East Asia. Its neighbours in the region are also clamouring for a piece of the development pie – Singapore is looking to build office towers, Vietnam has broken ground on new shopping malls, and China has designs on just about everything.

It is within this context of flux that I felt compelled to offer my own commentary on this city in the middle of the maelstrom.
Shooting only large format film (4x5 and 8x10) I wanted to use a tool that was physically aligned with the character and age of what I was photographing. The large format process is a physically demanding enterprise, but ultimately yields negatives suitable for extreme enlargement while maintaining rich detail.

The Burmese people are striding forward into this still unformed future both caught in the slipstream of their neighbours’ 
progress while trying to chart their own unique path.

Yangon itself translates as ‘End of Strife’ and I hope that as the 2015 parliamentary elections loom that the strife which this country has experienced for half a century will be at an end – ushering in a new era of renewal built on the bones of it. - Andrew Rowat

Published on Oct 4, 2014

A brief explanation of Andrew Rowat's "Collision Yangon" project, starting from 2012-2014. The project is ongoing, but the video delves into the different forces that are at play in Myanmar and Yangon specifically today in advance of the 2015 Parliamentary elections. The project started from,from a commission to photograph colonial architecture for the Wall Street Journal's magazine WSJ and evolved from that point.

Video shot by Lee Satkowski, Andrew Rowat, and Algirdas Bakas. Music by Algirdas Bakas, editing by Jia Li.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX6giJ6DdiI

The September Show featuring Harrison Taylor, Rhiana Sneyd and Beverley Abramson.

Harrison Taylor using various media including drawing, painting and photography has created new works rich with organic shapes extracted from a multi disciplinary process. Included are six innovative multi-dimensional pieces framed in Italian wood, this is a must see!

Rhiana Sneyd has painted large new architectural landscapes that convey the drifting warm hues glowing at dusk played against the descending cool darkness of night.

Beverley Abramson has new limited edition photographs from her recent series “Environment”. 

“Bold textures and colours, sights, sounds and shadows within diverse and mysterious culture are poignant moments that are unified by the celebration of innate beauty found in nature and humankind.” - Beverley Abramson

The July Show at the Elaine Fleck Gallery Featuring Painter Sumi Zushi

"I find peace in nature and a purpose in painting.  I am dedicated to exploring the qualities of landscapes in oil. I am inspired by nature, by the complexity of light, colour and pattern that it creates, and I strive to capture these ephemeral qualities in my work. It is these colour patterns, the rhythm of light and shadow and the glowing afternoon sunlight that I translate. I express with intensity, the immediacy of my experience within the landscape. My brushwork can be aggressive, stemming from a physical reaction to the setting in which I am working. I am inspired by different environments to experiment with different painting techniques and this challenges me as an artist." Sumi Zushi

Sumi has just returned from Japan with Eight New Paintings painted during the country's iconic Sakura (cherry blossom) season. Sumi's work evokes the masterful french impressionist Monet, yet with a fresh contemporary edge that is unmistakable. 

"Hanami" (flower viewing) is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura (Cherry Blossom) or ume (plum blossom) tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period (710–794) when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period (794–1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura. The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune 1716 - 1745 planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts.

Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the sakura zensen (cherry blossom front) as it moves northward up the archipelago with the approach of warmer weather via nightly forecasts following the weather segment of news programs. The blossoming begins in Okinawa in January and typically reaches Kyoto and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April. It proceeds into areas at the higher altitudes and northward, arriving in Hokkaidō a few weeks later. Japanese pay close attention to these forecasts and turn out in large numbers at parks, shrines, and temples with family and friends to hold flower-viewing parties. Hanami festivals celebrate the beauty of the cherry blossom and for many are a chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful view. 

FLECK CONTEMPORARY FINE ART MAGAZINE GROUP SHOW

This past April over ten thousand select Toronto homes received FLECK CONTEMPORARY FINE ART MAGAZINE and of course we have provided an online version viewable by everyone and anyone. 

This June we celebrate the first edition of Fleck Contemporary Fine Art Magazine with
The Fleck Contemporary Fine Art Magazine Group Show and  Art Sale.

Featured Elaine Fleck Gallery Represented Artists:

Beverley Abramson
Lloyd Arbour

Maggie Broda

Nicole Charles

Michael Conway 

Roman Elinson

Kathy Kissik 

Gary Ray Rush

Amy Shackleton

S. Vote

Featured Independent emerging Canadian artists: 

Laura Anne Clayton
Karen Colangelo 

Claudette Losier

Jennifer Macdonald 

Paul Mitchnick 

Julien Poublanc 

Joan Andal Romano 

Paulette Marie Sauvé 

Jacqueline Veltri 

Lisa Vigliotta 

Stephen L. Waisberg

Eleanor Kee Wellman

http://www.elainefleckgallery.com/spring-summer-2014.pdf

scotiabank CONTACT photography festival - "ReConstruction" at the Elaine Fleck Gallery, featuring The Contemporary Fine Art Photography of S. Vote and Gary Ray Rush

GARY RAY RUSH

The objects I’m photographing are utilitarian (useful) and as such are intended to be appealing to our eyes and to feel good in our hands.
The four items I selected to photograph for this exhibition each have their own unique story. One is the inventor(s) ability to imagine new realities and to originate new and innovative ideas, which through planning and effort become an object of their own invention. The other is the people that owned and used each of these inventions. For instance the Nikon F2 is the camera that I started my professional career with and was purchased from a friend and mentor.

I’ve coined the word “Macro-pan photography” to describe my photography process.
Macro: Photographing small objects using close up photography equipment so that the object can be printed greater than life size. From Greek makros meaning “large” as in macro photography.
Pan: Photographing several slightly overlapping sections of a scene or object by tilting or swinging a camera from one side to another or up and down. From Greek pan meaning “all, all-inclusive” as in the word panorama.

In my studio I’ll take many test shots in order to choose the angle and lighting that draws attention to the beautifully designed features of my subject. Once the angle and lighting are worked out I’ll shoot many close-ups of each facet of the object. I shoot each close-up using a macro lens and sized in camera to print sharp and render excellent detail at approximately 16x20 inches. Using Adobe Photoshop I then merge as many as twelve of these images together resulting in a file that can be printed up to twelve feet by fifteen feet with uncompromising detail at close inspection. Next in Photoshop I'll transform the image to bring the object back to its original perspective. Finally the retouching; often the objects I’m choosing are decades old and show tremendous wear and tear, my challenge in retouching is to leave the character that only use and age can produce while ensuring the original design elements shine through.  ~ Gary Ray Rush - May, 2014

S. VOTE

We all love stories, we are born for them.Art tells stories and these stories reveal the truth and affirm who we are as humans. We are drawn to stories, and we are drawn to art … that is how we make meaning of our lives.
Our lives are journeys; art and stories allow us to experience the similarities between ourselves and others.
Stories and Art are as vital as food and air and water and love. Our stories, our ideas, our passions and truth shape us.
Now; tell me your story.
S.Vote - May, 2014.

INK NOIR interview with Elaine Fleck

FEB 14  Interview with art dealer, gallery owner and curator Elaine Fleck: embracing life through creating, learning and knowing

Art history is built on a foundation of unforgettable stories: fascinating, bold, sometimes tragic, full of romance, and most of all overflowing with mesmerizing personalities. There is a reason why we say “that’s a Picasso” as if we are in the presence of the artist himself. Part of that history is due to the monumental role art dealers play in artist’s lives. Picasso, for example, would not be a household name without Ambroise Vollard, a brilliant individual in his own right who helped with exposure, finances and, most importantly, emotional support for an array of now historically significant artists. Then and now exceptional art dealers must be intelligent, knowledgable, intuitive, educated, and business oriented – and that’s just scratching the surface. Art dealer, gallery owner, and curator Elaine Fleck of The Elaine Fleck Gallery fits the role on all accounts. She graciously sat down with me this weekend to discuss the inner workings of her job, her passion, and just how vital a good art dealer is to any great artist. Below are brief excerpts from our conversation. I know I have said this before but it is the absolute truth: the most painful part of my job for Ink Noir is narrowing down quotes when speaking to such vibrant personalities.

“I own a gallery on West Queen West in the trendy art and design district. Being in a good location is key for a commercial gallery because commercial galleries are very public activities. You are dealing with the whole public, art buying is no longer on the weight of the very wealthy people. Since the 80s there have been credit cards and since there is credit I have observed that the gallery is for everyone, and that’s a great thing because now I can speak to the whole world as patrons of the arts. That’s how the gallery started, that’s what we want. The broader public is involved, I always include them in my gallery: I include them in soirees and they’re included in the whole process of education and understanding. I try to bring the whole community together and I’m actually getting quite well known for that. I enjoy it and I find my job is very spiritually uplifting because I’m helping artists, and I’m helping people understand what an original piece of art work is. I enjoy my job.” – Elaine Fleck

“If a person is truly dedicating their lives to what they want to get out to the world, someone has to listen to that. You can’t ignore that kind of communication – you could probably drive someone crazy not acknowledging that and that’s probably why people look to artists as being crazy. But I look at it in a different way. Artists are up there on the aesthetic plane so there has to be a liaison, and I’m that liaison that brings people up to that aesthetic because I’m so passionate, so in love with the artists that I show, I so adore them that I want the world to know about my artists. For my artists it is a gift to be part of that kind of a team, you are stronger as a team. All throughout history there are art dealers and artists. My mentors are people like Edith Halpert who started the first downtown gallery in 1926 in Greenwich Village with a focus on being an art dealer. She was a very strong woman and went to the village for practical reasons. Do you know why? Because it was close to where the artists lived in the ghetto so that they could be part of the gallery. It was amazing who she would bring in! When people tell you that there’s no walk-in traffic and it’s all from a black book I laugh because it is such a public activity. Who parked in front of her front door and walked down to the basement? Rockefeller’s wife, Abby Rockefeller, who became her best client, art patron, and took her through the great depression.”

Fleck is always actively educating herself, she has taken a variety of courses consistently for the last twenty-two years and prides herself on being a sponge to the knowledge she acquires through art authorities, art dealers, other curators, the internet, and the art buying public at large. She is also an avid reader having inherited a love of books from her mother. But her art education extends well beyond with a past as a trained dancer in New York and a whole talented family engaged and engulfed in various arts, as well as philanthropic ventures. One may say it’s in her blood. This innate intuition has resulted in a handful of talented and accomplished artists selected to be represented by her gallery.

You have probably realized as you read this that Fleck wears many hats, from owner of a gallery, to business woman, to active student, curator, art director and art dealer. In reality, she has many more. For one thing, she not only engages and educates the public that comes through her doors, but also the frequent artists. Artists may take a variety of photography workshops at the gallery (taught by the gallery’s director Gary Ray Rush, a highly accomplished photographer – if you want to be wowed take a look at his portraits), they may frequent her informative seminars and art talks, and she does weekly portfolio viewings. In her popular and surprisingly enjoyable portfolio viewings she presents the artists with a clear and objective outline of art critique and curation, clearing up the often misused and elusive concept of “unique”, followed by an understanding of the technical expertise that allows for an emotional impact. Finally, it comes down to the message.

“The universal message, I’m talking about the artist knowing what they want to say. You’ll find all the real greats that we know in history, they got what they wanted to say out and they can rest in peace. It’s a beautiful thing. From the get-go Amy Shackleton had a goal, she came to me as a young artist and she knew what she wanted to say. She had a sustainable futures that she wanted to show and she worked until she could show them so clearly anyone can get it. You don’t have to be a PhD from Harvard to know what she is communicating to the world.”

Elaine Fleck, pictured above in front of one of Amy Shackleton’s creations.

“I am the curator and art director of my publication, The Fleck Contemporary Art Magazine, which goes out twice a year. It was a catalogue over the past five years where we literally sent out over one hundred thousand published catalogues that are very beautiful and very well worked on and put together. But I and Gary Ray Rush, the editor of the catalogue, we wanted more content for the readers. We wanted people to have more information about what we are doing and get to know our artists… Now we have this publication and we have included other galleries, like Steward Jackson next door who writes about his love for the Japanese print and what turned him on to it when he was a young man and why he has been selling those for 30 years. It is just so beautiful. We have a journalist from India writing about Indian installation, and if you look at the pictures – it’s so different and delightful that we could bring this into art buyer’s homes. We hire a distribution company to put it into fifteen thousand homes twice a year and artists promote, we provide a platform to promote and have been doing this going on six years.”

“My next job is my most important, and that’s my art dealer job. My art dealer job is the one that keeps the scene going and it is to make my artists known and to promote the works that they are doing, and to continue to expand their client base and to get them to the next level in the art industry, which is art collectors demanding their art works. I have done an incredible job with Amy Shackleton, she is an example of a young artist with an art dealer that brought her from coming out of school and moved it up up up to the next level. What I bring heavily to this scene is my diverse background in the arts. I’ve seen every aspect of the different industries in the arts come to the same place: spirit, mind, body. You have a very beautiful exterior view of how the whole machine should work when you can see it working like that. I’ve represented artists since I was eighteen, I’ve been in the music industry, I’ve been in the photo industry, I’ve been a stylist, I’ve been a director on set, I’ve done so many things that add up to this gallery so I like to think of it as, I do the art in front of me. And it’s a great way to be.”

See the gallery for yourself and spend some time with the delightful Elaine Fleck. Tell her I sent you – you won’t be disappointed.

“You really see when you are raised in the arts like I was that it is not about going in for a paycheck, it is going in for the create that you yourself have to do, which is so important in life. It is a wonderful thing to embrace life through thriving on creating and learning and knowing.”

- Ania

http://www.inknoir.com/interviews/interview-with-art-dealer-gallery-owner-and-curator-elaine-fleck/

On Tuesday January 14, 2014
Elaine Fleck presented "ART TALK" at SOHO HOUSE Toronto featuring "Gravity Painter" Amy Shackleton. Soho House has established itself in London, New York, Toronto, Berlin, LA & Miami as the preeminent private members club for those in the creative industries.