Stereoscopy

2011 is going to be a good year. I'm getting very excited for the exhibition in February, so here's a peak at what you will see in Collingwood at the Blue Mountain Foundation for the Arts. The series Stereoscopy will feature portraits of my mother, Mary Roberts, my father, Patrick Payne (Above), and close family friend George Bell. I've chosen to depict these three people for some obvious, but some not so obvious, personal reasons.

STUDENTS zine

The first issue of STUDENTS zine has launched today. The issue features a few of my paintings and artist statement.

"STUDENTS is a new Irish Contemporary Art Magazine... dedicated to create a platform for discussion and dialogue for students and emerging artists. It aims to be at the forefront of art criticism and theory and to engage and represent the work of committed emerging practitioners within the field of 'Art', to promote their work and related interests to a wider appreciating audience and to create a discursive network between national and international colleges and universities."

The zine is available at various galleries across Europe and North America. Check out their website or download the first issue here.

Holiday Show & Sale

I am very delighted to have five new paintings featured in the Holiday Show & Sale at Susan Kristjansson Gallery, which opens next week. The show will run December 3rd to January 29th in Sarnia, Ontario. The small series is titled Askew.

More 3D

Here's another painting from my Stereoscopy series. The series will be exhibited in February 2011 at the Blue Mountain Foundation for the Arts in Collingwood.

Night at the Museum

Last night was the opening of the Juried Art Show & Sale at Museum London, a fundraising event held by the Museum's volunteer committee. Great food, great art, really great people (except for a few people that are definitely old enough to know better than to speak loudly over the Executive Director giving a speech about the art being honoured). Thanks to everyone who made it out: Derek, Heather, Cara, Sarah, and Emily (and also thank you Aaron for babysitting so that my sister could make it out). And thank you to the jurors who selected my work and the volunteers that made the night possible. Also a big thank you to Executive Director, Brian Meehan... And I'm sorry that even people three times my age can be so rude. ;)

The artwork will be for sale and the show will be up until February 21st. See www.jasslondon.ca for more info.

Museum | London: Juried Art Show & Sale

My "Anonymous Mugshot" paintings have been selected for the Juried Art Show & Sale, a special project by the Volunteer Committee of Museum London. The show's jurors this year are Madeline Lennon, Patrick Mahon and Brian Meehan. The opening reception takes place Wednesday, November 10th from 7-9pm at Museum London, tickets are $10. Come out to see, if you can!

Collingwood 2011

Happy 20th Blog Entry! I've been working away here to prepare for a show in Collingwood next February. It'll be at the Blue Mountain Foundation for the Arts, and I'll also be giving an artist talk at the end of that month. The opening reception is TBD. The show will feature the Stereoscopy painting series, but now for something completely different.... here is another drawing from the same series.

Nuit Blanche

Last weekend in Toronto was phenomenal. I got a hefty bag of swag in addition to my VIP passes (too bad I got it at the beginning of the night and had to lug it around - oh well). Constantly texting was a little more difficult than I thought it would be, especially without a smart phone, but it was a great experience, no less. It was also great to get to see my own work at Red Head Gallery for their show Insomnia. Below are a few shots from Daniel Lanois's "Later That Night At The Drive-In" at Nathan Phillips Square. Nathan Pen, my Nuit sidekick (that's right, Nate - I'm Batman, you're Robin) took some incredible photos, and I'll link his page once he's got them up.

1st Place, Winnipeg Nuit Blanche

So as I already mentioned, an edit of "Symbiosis" was screened at the first annual Winnipeg Nuit Blanche as part of the "90 Second Quickie Film Contest" presented by the Winnipeg Film Group. The selected videos, about 40 of them, were all screened on the evening of WNB last Saturday, September 25th at the famous corner of Portage & Main on a 13' by 35' foot high definititon screen. There was a second screening at WFG's Cinematheque on the evening of Sunday, September 26th.








The winners were announced during Nuit Blanche, and to my surprise I won first place! A big, big thanks goes to Monica Lowe for coordinating the screening, and of course to the jurors: Alex MacKenzie, John Paizs, and Sarah Anne Johnson, who are all important players in the contemporary Canadian film scene. It's an incredible honour, and I truly wish I could have been there at Winnipeg Nuit Blanche. Click here for the official announcement by WFG, and here for a full list of winners and participants, including some samples of the other short films screened for the competition. Also, I should have the "real" documentation soon.

Update: I just got a lovely package from the Winnipeg Film Group, including not only my prize, but also their most recent catalogue of essays and a DVD featuring some of the first filmmakers to work with WFG.

"Insomnia" at Red Head Gallery

"Can You Tell Me?" will be featured in The Red Head Gallery's fifth annual Nuit Blanche show, Insomnia. Located at the renowned 401 Richmond art gallery plaza in downtown Toronto, the show will open to the public this Wednesday, September 29th at 7pm and will run until the morning of Sunday, October 3rd at 7am. It will be open all night during Nuit Blanche, so please come out and see! I got a sneak peek yesterday and I can tell it will be a spectacular show. Over 50 artists from across Canada are participating, with meditation on the theme of a sleepless night. So drink a whole pot of coffee and then come out to see the show.

Click here for the official SNB listing.

Nuit Narrator

The marketing team for this year's Nuit Blanche in Toronto have selected me to be a Nuit Narrator for the event. I will be reporting on my experiences throughout the night via texting and twitter, and I have VIP access to every NB event in the city - which means no waiting in line for me! I will be reporting on a few of the lectures that are being held this week in Toronto as well. And I'll also be attending the Pre-Nuit reception on September 30th at the Scotia Plaza. Finally, the night of Nuit Blanche everything I report and photograph will be posted live on the Nuit Blanche website and appear on a giant screen in downtown Toronto. Cannot wait to be there!

Interaccess

Well, I went to Toronto this week to document my work in the gallery, so for those who haven't seen it in person, here are a few shots. I was also lucky enough to get a hold of the archival documentation of the show, shot by artist Dave Kemp (who I believe, incidentally, is a PhD candidate at UWO starting this year). In the shot above you can see Philippe Blanchard's "Cave Rave" peeking through on the right. I adore his contribution to the show, and he's also done some outstanding commercial work that I'm sure most of you would recognize (also on his website). I was in good company, and it's been humbling to show with each other of the four artists. These are shots from my own documentation.

WFG 90 Second Quickie

It's been confirmed that a 90 second edit of "Symbiosis" will be one of many film shorts screened this year at Winnipeg's First Annual Nuit Blanche. The Winnipeg Film Group put out a call for films 90 seconds in length or shorter, inviting artists, animators and filmmakers to participate in their Second Annual 90 Second Quickie film contest. It will all start on the evening of September 25th starting at 10:00pm for Nuit Blanche, and once again on the 26th at 7:30pm. The short films will be screened on a 13 by 35 foot high resolution video screen at Portage & Main (shown below). I wish I could be there, but I'm still very excited to be a part of it.

The Wowza Effect: Update

I was delighted to learn this week that my painting "Patrick" has been awarded third place in The Wowza Effect juried exhibition at the Susan Kristjansson Gallery in Sarnia. The show was juried by curator Lynn Brogden, and artists Gary Nixon and Iaian Greenson. Many thanks to all who came out to see.

Published! (in Spring 2011)

The painting "Captain" has been selected for publication in the very first Manifest International Painting Annual exhibition-in-print. The Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Centre in Cincinnati, Ohio has been publishing these competition-based texts for drawing for the past five years, and this is first year that a painting issue is being released. Manifest received 1200 entries from all over the world and a jury of professional and academic advisors narrowed it down to 80 artists. The book will be available for purchase in Spring of 2011 on www.manifestgallery.org or amazon.com.

Bonus!

Due to it's popularity and positive reception, the good folks at Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre have decided to extend Kunstkammer/Wunderkammer to run until September 18th. If you're in Toronto, come and check out the cabinet of curiosities while you still can!

Ink on glass

Earlier this summer I went out to Kananaskis, Alberta to visit Derek at his research campus. While there, I discovered a whole new medium: Crayola window writers. I spent hours defacing Derek et al's stunning living room view of the mountains... and I'm not sorry. A couple of months passed before I revisited this idea. I used regular permanent marker since the window markers are not translucent, and drew on two panes of glass, overlapped, and framed them. More to come.

A prize, more press, and the rest

A little while back, my Anonymous Mugshot paintings were awarded the first place prize in the Faces & Figures juried exhibition of the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, California. Juror and curator Rene de Guzman made the selections for the show and awards.

In other news, I recently discovered some press coverage of the Grimsby Public Art Gallery's 11th Biennial Juried Exhibition: an article from NiagaraThisWeek.com, and a video report by TV Cogeco Ontario. My paintings can be seen at about the 1:20 mark, but the whole video is worth giving a watch.

It's been almost two weeks since I got back from teaching in London with Eaglearts Academy, and I miss my co-workers/new friends dearly. I got live amongst some of the most artistically talented people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. It was also an opportunity to teach international students learning English as their second or third language. I was primarily teaching Adobe Photoshop, without my own computer to teach from, so success in the class was contingent upon linguistic comprehension. This could have been extremely challenging and frustrating, but I was pleasantly surprised by their skill level and overall perseverance. It was really quite admirable.








Finally, laurapayneart.com is currently under construction and will hopefully be up and running by the end of the week. It will include a few new features, including some never-before-seen video work that I've completed in the last few months. Just clips, of course.

More on Kunstkammer/Wunderkammer

As I previously mentioned, the opening of Kunstkammer/Wunderkammer on Friday, July 23rd went very well. I met some great people and made some connections. Here is the original Akimbo exhibition posting:


















Since then, hundreds have been through the space and I've read some positive reviews. NOW Toronto listed it as a "must-see" show. R.M. Vaughan of the Globe & Mail gave it a good review also, which you can find on the website or in this Saturday's paper. Eye Weekly gave a mixed but overall pretty decent review as well, so here's my section:

"... Laura Payne’s intriguing study of James Earl Jones, Can You Tell Me? Indeed, Payne’s work, with its intention to reveal, might be closest to Spooner’s idea of a Wunderkammer object. A hypnotic loop of Jones’ audition for Sesame Street, in which he seems overly, awkwardly methodical, it is both familiar and startling. Jones could be a politician, an inmate, a terrorist, a news anchor. More than Blanchard, even, Payne makes something old and borrowed seem new again."

I must express my gratitude to the brilliant Rosemary Spooner who curated the entire show, and also I should say that it has been humbling to show my work among such talented and visionary artists as those in the show. It has been an enormous privilege.









Finally, I think my favorite moment today was discovering that not only has the Eye Weekly review been linked from the USA Today website, as they archive many publications, but that the article has been filed under "James Earl Jones". Yes!

Emerging Artists show in Toronto

Okay, so sorry this has taken so long but I'm working 24/7 in London right now. Literally 24/7. Even when I'm sleeping.

I've been granted the privilege to participate in an Emerging Artists exhibition at the Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre in Toronto (at Ossington and Queen) titled Kunstkammer/Wunderkammer. I will be showing a video installation that some of you may recall from my Practicum exhibition called Can You Tell Me?. I will also be exhibiting some new drawings, but I guess you will have to go see them for yourself. There will also be work featured by four other emerging artists. The opening reception takes place this Friday, July 23rd from 7 to 10pm. Failing that you can go check it out until August 28th.

Update: the opening was amazing - a lot of people showed. I had to leave early to make it back to London in good time, but I made a very interesting connection with someone very important. Good conversation. More to come soon.

Finally...

Well it sure has been a while, but my most recent work is finished, or finished enough to post. I'm sure I'll pick away at a few details here and there, especially with the background. That's the thing about setting my own deadlines, I'm very generous when it comes to granting extensions.






























Anyway, I'll be away from Guelph for three weeks for work, but I will have more news shortly regarding another upcoming exhibition, possibly two... or three? We'll see.

Old But New

Okay okay, so this is not new material. I did these paintings last year (24" x 30" acrylic on canvas). But there is a reason I'm posting them. They will be featured in the Grimsby Public Art Gallery's Biennial Juried Exhibition, which will run from July 23 - August 22. The jurors, who select the forty participating artists as well as the top awards, included Zhe Gu (Stratford Gallery director), David Taylor (retired director and curator), and artist Tor Lukasik-Foss. It should be an exciting show!

Update: while I'm at it, I should point out that this is not the first time these paintings have been exhibited. As well as appearing in the UWO artLab's Annual Juried Exhibition, where they won the People's Choice Award, they were selected to launch the USC Public Art Gallery Program.

ArtHash

Hello, friends!
I've taken a brief hiatus from the blog while in Alberta for a week and a half. Many of you may have already seen the following, but I answered a few questions for the author of ArtHash, a blog that features artist interviews, exhibition dates and other arts opportunities around the world and web. Take a look!


















ArtHash: Artist Interview: Laura Payne

I hope to have a new finished painting, of which there is a preview on ArtHash, up here soon.