© 2020 TorontoArtsandEvents
On Thursday, February 20, 2020, Toronto Arts and Events had the pleasure of attending the opening night party for the Thirteenth Annual Artist Project, held inside the Better Living Centre. As Canada’s largest annual arts and culture events, The Artist Project provides a platform for established and emerging artists from across Canada to showcase their work to the thousands of attendees, many of whom are art dealers, gallery owners, and passionate art lovers.
At this year’s Artist Project, there was Telegenic, a new area solely dedicated to six different Virtual Reality, multimedia, and video installations. One of the installations, Project H.E.A.R.T. (Holographic Empathy Attack Robotics Team), 2017 was a VR installation curated by Erin Gee and Alex M. Lee. The installation used the popular ‘militainment’ one-person shooter video game genre, along with driven provided by the user, and pop music to fuel a new form of emotional drone warfare on the soldiers in the game.
With over 300 booths to explore, there was plenty of opportunity for visitors to meet the artists directly and learn more about their styles, backgrounds, and work. Gordon Shadrach returned to the Artist Project with new additions to his gorgeous fashion portraits in vintage frames. One of the new paintings entitled, Rapt, was a portrait of Patrick Mutombo, the assistant coach of the Toronto Raptors. In this portrait, Patrick was seen head down, wearing a black NBA Finals 2019 cap, and sporting a calm smile on his face. Heather Haynes showcased a large multiple panel installation called Wall of Courage. This work used painting, photography, and text to portray the lives and stories of 80 orphaned children living in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The children in these portraits survived devastating tragedies that no child should ever have to experience, and the way Haynes captured their courage, sweetness, and innocence is deeply moving and powerful. Award-winning visual artist Alexander Eros Rocco showcased a series of black and white photos that used striking angles and play of light and shadow to highlight details in the subjects. The subjects in these photos are models who were walking down the runways for designers such as Guo Pei and Thierry Mugler. In most of these photos, the models’ backs were turned towards the camera, allowing the viewer to see the beautiful details of these garments and notice the grace, elegance, and poise of these models.
Other highlights of the opening night party included music from LUXE LIFE SOUND, the countless food and beverage purveyors, and the UNTAPPED Emerging Artists Competition, an area dedicated to supporting the talent of students, new graduates, and self-taught artists by giving them a platform to display their works to the public.
The Artist Project
The Artist Project is Canada’s most celebrated contemporary art fair that features the artwork of established and up-and-coming artists across the country and abroad. The artwork featured at this art fair range from commercial, Canadian landscapes to edgy digital art, sculpture, glasswork, photography, printmaking, even conceptual and installation art. To learn more about The Artist Project, please visit their website at www.theartistproject.com
© 2020 Article by Aleka Allen, Photos and layout TorontoArtsandEvents
