From the Facebook group ‘Everyone’s an Art Critic: Toronto’ discussion topic.

Topic: What themes do you see in contemporary Toronto Art?

01. Gareth Bate wrote on Sep 17, 2007 at 4:56 PM
Do you notice any general themes in Toronto art? Any medium or imagery that is particularly prevelant?

02 .Martin Alonso (York University) replied to Gareth’s post on Sep 18, 2007 at 8:26 PM
Not relevant, but just annoying and utterly useless trends:

1. Birds: especially orioles and finch-like creatures.

2. Deer: to play on the ‘woodsy’ theme alongside the birds.
[Could this be a flash of modern Canadiana?]

3. Neon colours, such as bright magenta, cyan, and yellow.

4. And the act of drawing on walls. Carrie, this one’s for you!

Maybe they are relevant in one way or another; I’m sure they are somehow. But on the surface, the sheer repetitiveness of it all becomes nerve-wracking and a complete turn-off.

03. Gareth Bate replied to Martin’s post on Sep 19, 2007 at 5:51 AM
At the queen west art crawl there was an awful lot of picky little pencil drawings. Really precious stuff.

04. Kurt Rostek replied to Gareth’s post on Sep 19, 2007 at 4:20 PM
I’m seeing a lot of what I would call an almost frivolous if not cartoonish works..with toys, dolls …childlike memorabilia..

05. Stanzie Tooth (OCAD) wrote on Sep 20, 2007 at 10:17 AM
I’ve been seeing alot of micro/ macro stuff- semi-abstract thing based on: diseases, cells- general closeups of bodily fluids, etc.

06. Alex Mcleod replied to Martin’s post on Sep 20, 2007 at 10:37 AM
i see that martin has hurt my feelings 🙁

07. Martin Alonso (York University) replied to Alex’s post on Sep 20, 2007 at 3:27 PM
Hence, art criticism.

😉

08. Alex Mcleod replied to Martin’s post on Sep 21, 2007 at 4:41 AM
I’m going to fight you

09. Martin Alonso (York University) replied to Alex’s post on Sep 21, 2007 at 6:03 AM
Bring it on, dear.
I’m ready!

10. Robert Farmer wrote on Sep 21, 2007 at 12:15 PM
let’s cover it in resin!

11. Alex Mcleod replied to Robert’s post on Sep 23, 2007 at 10:17 AM
only photo collages though

12. Rachel McRae replied to Martin’s post on Sep 27, 2007 at 9:22 PM
As an artist who works with deer imagery a lot I feel I need to respond.

If the use of deer is a “trend” its one with quite a rich history. Beyond mere “Canadiana,” it recalls symbolic use stretching across a vast track of geography (across all continents except Antarctica and Australia) and time (Paleolithic cave paintings in Cave Trois Frères in southern France feature a “shaman” figure crowned with horns.) The deer figures prominently in heraldry internationally, Greek, Slavic, Hindu, Judeo-Christian, Celtic.. A whole mass of religious/cultures groups use the deer as a symbol. Deer appear frequently in classic/neo-classic still lifes and imagery of the hunt…

An animal of such widespread dispersement, a rich food source (and thus economic importance) is bound to become a weighty cultural symbol. Though you yourself may not hunt deer, wear deer skin, engage directly with the animal in any way, you do have a certain connection with it. You’re talking about “art,” practicing I can only assume, and art’s connection with the deer-as-symbol is vast and dense.

Any practice with history must dialogue with its past. (Otherwise, I would argue; it is not art. If I may express a personal opinion, art becomes art when it is engaged with its historical cannon. Otherwise it is something distinct. That being said, engagement is not synonymous with compliance or agreeance.)

(With all due respect, I wouldn’t apply the term “useless” so lightly.)

13. Martin Alonso (York University) replied to Rachel’s post on Sep 27, 2007 at 10:34 PM
So, why is deer imagery so ‘important’ (or rampant) in Toronto NOW?

14. Therese Cilia (OCAD) wrote on Sep 28, 2007 at 11:19 AM
I’m getting the impression from this board that themes and trends in art is generally a bad thing, but I’m not so sure. To me, trends are inevitable and unavoidable. We’re all questioning the same universe and have been since we’ve been on this planet. We’re going to be talking about our past and our present, we’re looking at the same things and being influenced by the same things – that’s culture! We’re seeing birds, butterflies, deer, and micro/macroscopic life because they’re HERE, and so are we. If the work is ‘authentic’, not just following a trend but actually being it and questioning it, (and I know we can all realize the difference, it’s what makes a good painting a good painting or not), then birds, cells or deer – it all doesn’t matter.

As an aside, I’d like to say that the Ann Hamilton lecture was EXCITING. It actually made me a little nostalgic to be in school again and be surrounded in that atmosphere. If you’re a graduate, you know what I mean?
I love that when I hear or read Ann Hamilton, I get the feeling that her work and her voice I can never quite grasp, but am so close to getting. She’ll say or do something really profound that leaves you wanting more because you can never quite keep it all in your head. If that makes any sense at all. I love it.

15. Carrie Cutforth-Young (OCAD) wrote on Sep 29, 2007 at 12:54 PM
Deer “heads” was reintroduced into the contemporary International art scene when much of the critical discourse centred on the Archive and the museums/institutions role of dominating/destroyer/preserver of nature…and it’s also retro–like Victorian riffed wallpaper…what goes around comes around, and it finally hit Toronto

YOU CANNOT DENY OSMOSIS

popular motifs develop organically not necessarily meaning one is “following” a trend, especially if each artist has a different critical approach and style

deer heads and birds and neon is what will mark this generation of paintings as opposed to cubic abstraction or big eyed paintings, etc. is that a bad thing? no…seriously…everyone in TO working with the same motifs should put out and imprint with essays championing the varying reasons behind the use of neon/birds/dear…with Martin writing the forward 😉

seriously…it will give Martin a topic to lecture future OCAD students about

AND AS FAR AS DRAWING ON WALLS:

for me, Dood was a mere momentary interruption of the usual really bad community arts practice with the synthesis of participatory culture theory made manifest in the physical and digital realms

😉

16. Carrie Cutforth-Young (OCAD) replied to Robert’s post on Sep 29, 2007 at 12:59 PM
covering it in resin was sooo last years TIFF 😉

it made the 3 or so resinless paintings really stand out

i swear thats the only reason I go to TIFF, is to see which trend has exhausted itself into implosion

17. Carrie Cutforth-Young (OCAD) replied to Carrie’s post on Sep 29, 2007 at 1:02 PM
we could call the book “deers, birds, neon OH MY!”

18. Gareth Bate replied to Rachel’s post on Oct 2, 2007 at 9:31 PM
Can you post a link to your work?

19. Martin Alonso (York University) replied to Carrie’s post on Oct 2, 2007 at 11:30 PM
“I’ll foreword anytime!” says the next up-and-coming art historian/editor/anthologist. I have big plans ahead, Carrie…

;P

20. Liz Pead wrote on Oct 4, 2007 at 12:19 PM
As a landscape painter, I find this thread really interesting.

Deer and birds are often around me, but like people in city scapes, I omit them in the landscape.
There’s something tacky about portraying deer and other animals in art – I grew up with string-art and velvet paintings in New Brunswick. Jacking deer was a passtimje, but also a necessity for some as a source of a winter’s worth of meat.

Depicting animals, especially by people who grew up in the suburban/ urban experience so often found here in Canada ( not that I’m making any assumtions about any of you and where you grew up!!!) is kind of sweet. I don’t see it any different =than me going up to Algonquin Park every summer and painting my idea of the pretty northern, pristine landscape. It is a potent form of nostalgia that I have for an environment I both remember from my past in New Brunswick surrounded by trees and a form of nostalgia for these natural things which are disappearing very quickly before me.

As for them being trends? Maybe we are reacting more than we know to our envirnomental breaking down…m uch more violently than we can even put into words.

A couple of years ago ( SPring 2006?) Border Crossings mag did a whole issue dealing with Animals, Im going to revisit it and see if it makes any more sense to me now than it did then ( I was finishing my thesis at that point and unless it was hockey or landsacpe it kinda went by me…)

Any thoughts?