Monday, March 22, 2010

Canada, Toronto: through March 28, 2010 - Cityscrapes

Cityscrapes

Show & Tell Gallery is pleased to present a collaborative exhibition featuring the works of Ryan Dineen and Jacques Oulé entitled "Cityscrapes". This show aims to draw attention to the often overlooked and disregarded images that reflect the subtleties of city living. These images of corrosion, decay and gentrification convey a beauty found in daily life that is nontraditional yet familiar.

Ryan Dineen was born in Toronto in 1983. An accomplished graffiti and mural artist, his fine art demonstrates this background through what can be perceived as a controlled carelessness. Dineen's ongoing series of cityscape paintings display a unique viewpoint of urban life. Many of his own personal experiences of growing up in downtown Toronto are reflected in his work. Striving to portray the raw beauty in the people and places he paints, Dineen finds grace and delicacy within mundane imagery associated with the urban setting.

Jacques Oulé was born in the village of Soubise, France in 1960. He grew up in Aix en Provence and Paris, and relocated to Toronto in 1981 at the age of 21. Oulé's most recent work draws heavily on his fascination with time and the relationship between the individual and the collective. The trees and doors are two elements of a three-part photography series entitled "Á Perpétuité". They prove to be evidence of the human impulse to leave behind an imprint of our existence - to engrave, on surfaces of apparent permanence, the simple statement: "I exist."