GILLIAN ILES
YOU MAY BE A WINNER
OCTOBER 5 TO 29, 2016
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 6 - 8:30PM
EXTENDED HOURS: FRIDAY OCTOBER 21, 12 - 8:30PM
You may be a winner installation detail. approximate dimensions 102” x 132”
Mixed media painting and sculpture. 2016
The Red Head Gallery is pleased to present You may be a winner by artist Gillian Iles.
You may be a winner is the third instalment in series that included You can only get there from here and We found ourselves in a dark forest. The narrative based series follows a group of young protagonists confrontation with an awareness of their own potential and how it is shaped by social ideals, social orders and idealized lifestyles. The presentation of symbolic imagery draws from reoccurring themes within digital culture and social media, which presents an infinite array of ideals and desires as a sensory collage of fleeting instants. The imagery includes a primal environment akin to Eden in its combination of desire and threat. The ideals that simultaneously repel and attract are within reach, but the most significant obstacles and pitfalls are now present.
The ubiquitous next generation, when on the cusp of defining their mature identity, are potential future agents of change. Each generation possesses the primal inclination for shifts and challenges to the accepted ideals. Like Schrödinger’s cat, the perception of what is ideal is tenuous and all outcomes are possible yet at this point remain undefined.
You may be a winner is a combination of large-scale paintings with sculpture. The installation is environmental in scope, where paintings physically construct a corner and the viewer walks up a rising floor plane to a precipice. At the precipice, the imagery extends above, below and to the sides of the viewer. The viewer encompassed by the imagery becomes the protagonist, presented with the choice of infinite possibility and consequence. Take the leap or walk away.
Gillian Iles’ practice consists of painting, sculpture and video/projection. She has exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Brooklyn, Chicago, Miami, Montreal and Toronto in public institutions, university galleries, artist-run centres and commercial galleries. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at the Rosemary Duffy Larson Gallery in Florida and Redhead Gallery in Toronto. Her work has been highlighted in Canadian Art, Mix Magazine, Toronto Life Magazine, as well as the National Post and The Globe and Mail. She is featured in the book Carte Blanche Volume 2: Painting. Gillian was a founding member of two artist-run galleries in Toronto - Propeller and Loop and is currently part of Blunt Collective and Glasshouse Collective, which investigate the role of representation and narrative in visual imagery. Gillian teaches at the Ontario College of Art and Design and Sheridan College in Canada.
Recent work combines environmental scale paintings with sculptures, video and projection, creating installations incorporating both real and illusionary space, transforming exhibition spaces into a collision of alternate realities.
