Latest Art Review

Colouring Outside the Lines: Two Artists Challenge Ideals

Published April 28, 2011 in FFWD Magazine

 http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/arts/visual-arts/colouring-outside-the-lines-7352/

Newzones Gallery - Franco DeFrancesca's "Furniture Music"  and Virginia Mak's "Of One's Own"

These days it seems artists are less inclined to stay within the confines of one medium. Blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, two solo exhibitions currently at Newzones Gallery dispel the notion that an artist must fit neatly into one category.

Franco DeFrancesca would neither categorize himself a painter nor a photographer, preferring the term “multimedia artist.” This label proves apt for DeFrancesca,as his art covers the gamut from sculpture-installation to photography, digital art and sound art. 

“Furniture Music” features glossy, brightly coloured, candy-like digital images. Using a mouse rather than a paint brush, DeFrancesca’s works are created on the computer,then printed onto photographic paper. Somewhere along the way, he has discovered that applying a top coat of liquid resin produces the lustre and depth he seeks when creating these high-tech images.

This, along with the decision to mount them on plywood panels, gives them a painterly object-like quality that he would not get had he simply chosen to frame them. What is more, choosing to print only one of each, rather than producing multiple editions, automatically elevates the prints to a higher status than is typically awarded to photographs.

DeFrancesca’s carpentry background yields beautifully crafted plywood panels, an aspect of the work that one must be careful not to neglect amidst the seductive appeal of the image. This impeccable workmanship complements the highly technical, computerized images.

“Furniture Music” refers to a term coined by French composer Erik Satie in 1917 to describe background or ambient music. DeFrancesca’s images vibrate and interact with the viewer, and it is easy to see how they are visual depictions of sound waves. Being that music is the art of time, and visual art is that of space, these objects can be conceived as time capsules locking and sealing a fleeting moment in visual form.

Although Sabrina Pittoello, assistant director of Newzones, says there is no connection to the neighbouring artist, Virginia Mak, she maintains the gallery tries to pair artists that complement one another in stimulating ways. When viewing Mak’s “Of One’s Own,” the polarities between the two artists couldn’t be more stark.

DeFrancesca employs vivid, intense colours, while Mak applies a more subdued, toned-down palette. Although both artists have adopted a blurring effect that make their final works disorienting, almost to the point of dizzying, DeFrancesca’s images, especially those consisting of concentric circles, appear to have crisp lines, while Mak seems to evade delineations altogether. The reference to painting is obvious in DeFrancesca’s works, which recall colour-field and minimalist paintings of the late 20^th century; conversely, Mak’s works are figurative.

Mak’s portraits consist of women gazing through a window in pensive, meditative poses. The fact that the subjects are out of focus — a technique achieved by projecting her photographs onto rice paper — renders their identities obscure and mysterious, and focuses our attention on their state of mind rather than on particulars. The pronounced ambiguity of the subjects (there is one subject that could pass for a man or woman given the short hair and collar shirt) seems appropriate given that the activities these women are engaged in are introspective in nature and do not belong to the public realm.

Born in Hong Kong and currently residing in Toronto, Mak is a photographer. However, the technique she employs in these works gives them a texture more emblematic of painting, easily misleading anyone who does not venture to look up close. Mak’s mounting treatment is equally important as DeFrancesca’s with respect to the works’ final impact. Her decision to opt out of framing the large 120 centimetre-by-120 centimetre prints at the risk of making them more fragile and exposed to the elements, is an attempt to give an immediacy, again more reminiscent of painting, that would have been lost had they been placed behind glass. Her work thus has a push-pull quality, pushing the viewer closer through the omission of an added layer, while simultaneously pulling the viewer back through its foggy, elusive esthetic. All the while, they serve to challenge traditional notions of photography and in particular portraiture, known for its increased accessibility relative to other art forms.

Pushing boundaries and challenging the mainstream is not just about creating art that is shocking or abrasive in nature — sometimes all it takes is being willing to colour outside the lines. Whether you prefer art that is exuberant and loud like DeFrancesca’s or tranquil and self-reflective like Mak’s, we can appreciate artists who look beyond self-imposed limitations.