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Notes on artwriting by Sally Mckay are available here
Please read RM Vaughan's very useful poem 7 Steps To a Better Artist Statement.
Students from the Professional Practice course taught by Cathy Daley and Sarah Nind at Ontario College of Art and Design, are invited to submit reviews of Toronto art shows for posting on this page.
Paul Butler, Getting There is Half the Fun
reviewed by Valeria Rzianina
I strolled into the Wynick/Tuck Gallery at 401 Richmond Street West and was immediately drawn to Paul Butler’s pretty little collages from the Readymade Series. Approximately every couple of months, Butler hosts these collage parties across Canada and internationally, where artists come together to create art. He then proceeds to gather the remnants left behind by the other artists and uses them as “readymades” for his own designs. The show, appropriately named Getting There is Half the Fun, explores the artist’s relationship to the art-making process and runs from January 14 to February 1, 2006.
Paul Butler’s new series, as influenced by Marcel Duchamp’s concept of “the readymade – finding art in the everyday,” is a collection of accumulated work from his renowned collage parties. The collages, which vary in size and consist of bold patterns, multiple layers of colour and cutouts of different images, are all put together in neat, white frames to create simple yet stunning works of art. Getting There is Half the Fun promotes, what seems like, two separate collections. One side of the gallery displays collages made from fashion magazines which, unmistakably, speak about popular culture. The other side of the gallery, however, presents images of flowers and plants that were intricately pieced together in the shape of bouquets, photographed and developed as 40”x30” Duraflex prints. I really like the simplicity of Butler’s work, even though some of the images he creates hint at more complex issues such as advertising and its superficial outlook on life and beauty. My favourite piece is Random, a collage which shows a fashion model with her body cutout and layered over a bright green and white background with the word “random” as the only evidence of the original advertisement. To me, Random, speaks about how disposable fashion models are. They are a dime a dozen and can easily be replaced by the next girl to model next season’s designer fashions. Of course, this is solely my opinion and I am sure each individual viewer will look at Random with their own set of interpretations.
Paul Butler’s Getting There is Half the Fun is a show not to be missed. The simplistic approach that Butler applies to his practice ensures that any viewer can enjoy his collages. But if you crave a deeper meaning, stop and think about the world around you for a minute and the Readymade Series will suddenly seem increasingly complex.
Review by Valeria Rzianina as part of an artwriting project for OCAD's Professional Practice course taught by Cathy Daley and Sarah Nind.