Upcoming Exhibition

MERGE 2

Tia Halliday, Kim Neudorf, Erik Olson

June 25 - July 23, 2009

Opening reception June 25 th , from 6 - 8 pm

Artists in attendance

Skew Gallery is pleased to present the second installment of MERGE, a group exhibition highlighting emerging artists with convincing trajectory. MERGE 2 features the work of Tia Halliday, Kim Neudorf and Erik Olson, three young artists who represent the diversity of contemporary Canadian art. These artists share a common local thread beginning with geographic local, as all three are from Calgary Alberta. Additionally they all share a common interest in the human figure as subject. These three emerging artists have individually garnered favorable critical attention for their art early in their careers. Presented collectively, Merge 2 makes for an interesting exploration of the human figure, as well as an introduction to the art of three well received editions to the national art scene.

Tia Halliday

The drawings and paintings of Tia Halliday illustrate the many complexities of the female and a relationship to technology and the everyday. Halliday employs humour and irony to engage within each depiction, illustrating the characters desires for intimacy as well as detachment; circumstances of the contemporary human condition. Halliday's characters created of collaged drawing which cast shadows, appear at once disparate and yet full of expectation and idealization. Visual references echo that of cluttered lifestyles, stacking image on top of image amassing imagery to create each figural form.

Having studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design, Ontario College of Art and Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tia Halliday recently completed her MFA at Concordia University in Montreal. Tia has received numerous scholarships and awards for her work and her art has been exhibited across Canada and in the United States  

View the artist's page here

Kim Neudorf

Removing herself from all personal connect to the subject, Kim Neudorf utilizes digital media, photography and film stills as source material allowing her to recreate the image in a way that suites her desire to see the original image on her own terms.  Focusing on close-up views which evoke a heightened emotion, this near field framing technique combined with the large scale of the paintings result in provoking the viewer through the intimate proximity of the viewer to the subject and depicted emotional state. The narrative role of the unusual emotional condition of Neudorf subject's anxiety and chilling gaze are of particular complexity and serve as platform to her additive and subtractive methods of paint application.

 Kim Neudorf is an artist, writer, and researcher interested in the phenomena and pictorial spaces of images, film, and that which inflects and reanimates those spaces. In 2005, she received her BFA in Painting from the Alberta College of Art & Design. Neudorf's paintings were recently debuted by Skew Gallery at the internationally renowned art fair SCOPE Basel in Basel, Switzerland. Her work has also been exhibited at the Illingworth Kerr and the Glenbow Museum in the critically acclaimed "Thick and Thin" exhibition, curated by Wil Murray.

View the artist's page here

Erik Olson

Inspired by youth culture and the resurfacing idealism of the 60's, Erik Olson's recent paintings utilize fractal proportions creating a rhythm and balance between big and small, detailed and broad brushwork. Olson's convincing brushstrokes are articulate components of a definitively figurative whole. Olson's portrayal of each subject focuses on the structure of expression by breaking down the figure, revealing the forms that articulate its significance. It is this exploration of structure that Olson concerns himself with, allowing the subjects likeness to fall into place. Even Olson's use of colour palette is defined by his environment; pronounced, and an element of the paintings structure.

Raised in cities including Calgary, Winnipeg, Nairobi, and Boston, Erik Olson is an artist, (Bachelor of Design Emily Carr Institute, 2005), who has cultivated a distinct visual art practice informed by his experience of design and international travel. In 2006, he traveled to Turin, Italy to work with artist Gordon Halloran on a major painting installation as part of Canada's cultural contribution to the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. Subsequently, he moved to London, England where he worked as an illustrator. In the summer of 2006 he received a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to paint and study in Florence, Italy. In 2008 he once again worked with Gordon Halloran to complete a painting in Millennium Park, Chicago.

Olson recently returned to his native city of Calgary to explore his experience of diverse urban and rural locations through painting. He has since exhibited at the Art Gallery of Calgary and his work can be found in the collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. He was the visionary and curator for the ephemeral yet impactful Ideal gallery and studio space.

View the artist's page here