merge

dave and jenn, adi zeharia, miriam bankey

aug 1 - aug 31 , 2006

Skew Gallery presents MERGE: a group exhibition, which intends to demonstrate the diversity of Canadian art as represented through the practices of three young Canadian painters. Artists from three different geographical areas will merge with each other in exhibition, and in turn, will merge with new audiences as they enter a commercial gallery context for the first time.

Jennifer Saleik and David Foy (aka Dave and Jenn) are the local component of MERGE. Collaboratively, Dave and Jenn are recent graduates of the Alberta College of Art and Design. Through a process of masking and layering narrative content, imagery, and material, Dave and Jenn's paintings provide an innovative portrayal of a distinctly Canadian landscape.

Adi Zeharia (Toronto) makes paintings that deconstruct and contain ideas around figuration. Children and domesticated animals serve as a familiar safety zone, and are set in opposition to militaristic and modern technologies - all of which occur in a groundless space that appears at once open, and claustrophobic. The resulting narrative is an unsettling one, where danger and unpredictability mix with the comfortable and whimsical.

Miriam Bankey, originally from Calgary, now works and lives in Australia. Her paintings may be seen to question the physical definition of painting itself, relying on the weight of painted layers to stretch, droop, and bulge as gravity takes hold throughout the drying process. The resulting work then, demonstrates an innovative approach to the treatment of a painted image, whereby the materiality of paint alone functions as the primary object.