Exuberance: The Garden

March 1 - 27, 2012

Opening Reception Thursday, March 1, 6 - 9 pm
Meet the artists!

Ontario Crafts Council Gallery
990 Queen Street West, Toronto

Exuberance: The Garden is an exhibition by four Toronto artists inspired by the beauty and the beasts of their private and intimate gardens. Paper, textiles, leather and glass are transformed to create audacious handcrafted work that celebrate vitality, joy and abundance.

Barbara Klunder brings her perspective on the relationship between gardens and insects with exquisite papercuts that honour the bee. In her words, “Bio Diversion is Bio Divinity”, and her celebration of this intersection reveals the larger pattern of connection between all living things.

Elena Soní presents captured memory and emotion in collaged sculptures placed under bell jars. Using fabric, paper and found materials, she recreates the orgiastic, seemingly anarchic vegetation growth of her childhood gardens in Venezuela.

Berta Biondic combines the ideas of decoration and floral pattern with the chandelier. Transferring the garden to the ceiling, she explores the different ways in which we ‘grow’ our own spaces.

Eileen Kwan takes botanical drawings into the realm of embroidery. Her installation of sculptural representations comes together in a riotous celebration of nature's beauty, bursting with colour and texture.

Images: Elena Soní, It's all right, we will have cake (detail, photo by Eugene Beck); Eileen Kwan, Clematis Florida, (detail, photo by Stuart Kirkpatrick); Barbara Klunder, OverLeaf (detail); Berta Biondic, Teal Crystal Chandelier (detail, photo by Russell Power).