Sunday, May 07, 2006

Nicolas Fleming and Stephen Fisher at Eastern Edge

I had been looking forward to this show for quite some time, not only due to my interest in landscape in visual art, but also because of the project Nicolas Fleming has planned for when he visits sometime later in May.

Fleming, from Montreal, is put into a canvas bag, while wearing a canvas suit with no eye-holes, and brought into a non-urban enviroment. By which I mean a park, the woods, whatever. Fleming crawls around on the ground, attempting to get a feel for the landscape only through what he can touch and hear and smell. As you can imagine, the video documentation of this performance is hilarious, as we watch Fleming (who just looks like a canvas coloured blob on screen) sort of roll around on the grass while people look on. Fleming then takes what information he has gathered through this performance and attempts to make an accurate depiction of the landscape in a painting.

On display right now at Eastern Edge is the documentation and paintings from two previous performances Fleming did as a sort of teaser for when he actually arrives in St. John's.

Paired with Fleming is Stephen Fisher from Halifax, whose bright dynamic abstract paintings are just wonderful to look at and are just as interesting conceptually. What Fisher has done is to take data related to a particular location: weather patterns, animal migration routes, geological events etcetera and translates this data into visual elements.

When I see work that deals with landscape in this way it makes all of the traditional stuff that dominates Newfoundland art production seem that much more tedious. It runs until June 17th.

12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

just out of curiousity, how, specifically, do you define "just wonderful to look at"?

xo
a.

ps...have been looking for your email...send me a note at andriahickey@gmail.com?

11:50 a.m.  
Blogger craigfrancis said...

i mean pretty.

10:34 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i agree that fisher's paintings are just wonderful to look at. they are a little prettier on screen than in real life. You could definately define them or sum them up as "slightly refreshing considering"

3:50 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice to see so much content. Nice to read you in the Current. No mention of the grad show at the ATC though, sad, so sad.
A lot of the work was great..
Huge crowd at the opening, dribs and drabs during the sitting times...
I ask the public, as sooo many people kept telling me they were convinced it was a one night only thing and not an actual exhibit that was up for a few weeks, what should the ATC do for the grad show to be taken more seriously as an actual exhibit?
As the only art school in town it seems strange that more people didn't check it out...
Allison Book has some prints for sale via Twisted Sister, she's going on to NSCAD, her work won't be that cheap for long.
Deirdre Whitten has a fashion show in July at the Majestic...
Peggy Tremblett sells her stuff on the internet and it is lovely...

next year's class is yet another eclectic mix of people all of whom will work their arses off to produce a great grad show...
it is not to be missed.

11:14 p.m.  
Blogger craigfrancis said...

Gillian: I missed the show because I was working the night in question and actually had no idea there was a full on exhibition happening. As you already know, I'm a huge supporter of your work and pretty much everything that happens at the ATC. So I apologize.

4:05 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's just it, nobody seemed to know it was an actual exhibit.
I didn't mean to write this as a guilt trip, I think that exhibit
is an example of the way the visual artist in Newfoundland gets way less support than the average sketch comedian, as you've argued previously. If an exhibit goes up in St.John's and is only seen by the parents of the artists involved and random tourists, but not so much by the wider arts community, does it still matter?

I don't mean to sound sanctimonious. There were lots of people that saw the show, but whole heaps of people that didn't even know about opening night.

This town needs a blog like this,
an anonymous-if-you-choose venting space. Keep it up.

2:15 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

11:48 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

11:54 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

4:04 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey what happened to the last comments, why have they been deleted. I didn't read them, were they offensive in some way? Just curious what you have to say to get your comments booted off the site.

1:51 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

do you have to edit your content now that you are affiliated with the paper, yes that is my comment and curious concern

1:52 p.m.  
Blogger craigfrancis said...

the comments were taken off because the person who wrote them contacted me and expressed serious regret over what they'd written. Under the circumstances, I obliged.
No. My affiliation with Current will not take any toll on how saucy and fucking obnoxious I am here.

4:22 p.m.  

Post a Comment

<< Home