UPART CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR
Rooms of Wonder

GLADSTONE HOTEL
Project Statement: CASES

Artists from Red Head Gallery participated in UpArt Contemporary Art Fair Rooms of Wonder 2009. Probing the nature of Wunderkammer (Wonder Room), we presented CASES, a multi-media installation of medicinal and sensory curiosities comprised of ipod videos and combined collections that explore contemporary society’s obsession with health issues.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpb85Y1rfdo for a video of the installation.

Participating Artists:

Ram Samocha was born in Israel and presently resides in Ontario. Samocha focuses on the issues of personal and global transformation and combines drawing with video, animation, and performance. His work is part of various museum and private collections and has been shown in Israel, The Netherlands, Mexico, the United States, Italy and Canada.

Ram Samocha, Hairy Up, 2009, Video performance

Paula Braswell is a multi-media artist whose works include video, sound, sculpture, and installation. A professional artist for over 20 years, she has received numerous grants and awards, shows nationally and internationally, and her work is found in private and corporate collections.

Jean Bridge works in variable media to create objects, installations and immersive environments that question our place in an artificial world. Her work is exhibited and collected widely in Canada and abroad.

Jean Bridge, Disposable Membrane, 2009, Video Montage

Jane Martin is a painter whose work has been exhibited at and bought by public galleries across Canada including the AGO and the National Gallery. Martin is active in the Artists’ Rights and Collective movements.

Jane Martin, Museum Mexico: Cakes and over-the-counter body parts in various shades of pink

Joan Kaufman is a Toronto-based artist working in photography, video, sound and sculpture. She has exhibited nationally and internationally with works in major public and private collections.

Joan Kaufman, Paraplegia
Music: Steven Severin and Warren Ellis
Technical Assistance: Sebastian Howard

Lynne Heller is a Canadian artist/designer who works in a variety of disciplines including fibre, sound, new media (virtual worlds, principally Second Life), websites and sculptural installations. Her work, shown both nationally and internationally, has been reviewed in the Art Papers, USA; The Globe & Mail, Canada; Fiberarts, USA; The National Post, Canada and The Hamilton Spectator, Canada.

Lynne Heller, Pillflower World

Margie Kelk currently resides in Toronto and has been actively showing artwork since 2000. Kelk is both Chair of the Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts and a member of the Red Head collective. She has traveled extensively in China and Latin America, and much of her mixed-media artistic production revolves around the cultures of these two regions.

Margie Kelk, Zen Calligraphy
Technical Assistance: Ian Kelk

Laura Cunningham & Elaine Whittaker
Laura Cunningham received her B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo and her M.F.A. from York University. Her work is represented in private collections as well as the permanent collections of both the University of Waterloo and York University.

Elaine Whittaker creates mixed media installations that intersect art with science, examining issues such as genetic engineering, microbto.org/";ial origins of lifeto.org/";, the emergence of infectious disease, and the aesthetics of disaster. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, featured in literary and medical magazines, and she has been the recipient of awards and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.

Laura Cunningham & Elaine Whittaker, Teratoma
Technical Assistance: Hilary Martin and Jake Boone; Music: Moby

Janet Bellotto is an artist, writer and curator from Toronto, who is currently working in Dubai. She has exhibited projects internationally including New York, Venice and Mexico City. Her work and research specializes in sculpture/installation and photography as she is preoccupied with the notion of Atlantis, where natural disasters become evermore the nightmare and the world that drowned evermore plausible.

Janet Bellotto, A collection of See and Sea