Stephen Andrews, The Butterfly Effect (series of paintings), photo by Murray Whyte for Toronto Star
If you’re in Toronto this summer and looking for an exhibition that is both visually pleasurable and technically astute, take a trip to Stephen Andrews’ Point of View, currently at the Art Gallery of Ontario until August 30th. The exhibition combines a decade and half of Andrews’ most recent work, which is born and bred in Toronto and reflects both the influence of the city and Andrews’ early development as a photography and collage artist, and his later movement into painting.
The subjects brought up in POV are as diverse as Andrews’ material applications, moving from the dissembly of intractable issues such as surveillance and war to the ephemeral nature of memory and the universe. His painting methodology stems from his past as a photographer, through which he often uses only cyan, magenta, yellow and black — the constituents of modern printing — to colour his paintings. With this technique, Andrews moves through various processes of abstraction and imitation to create a language of form and colour which accesses the familiarity of contemporary photography-based imagery.
Featuring an impressive range of artworks including painting, drawing, photography, and ceramics, the exhibition offers a singular visual history of Toronto as both backdrop and inspiration for Andrews’ work.
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bottom two images:
first, left: Crossing, 2011; and right: A View from Above, 2010
second, 10 XI 01, 2001
photos by Brynn Higgins-Stirrup