CRAM2010

FAMILY PORTRAIT
September 18 - October 5th
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 18th, 8:00 - 11:00 pm

A group show by four brothers: Jeff, Alex, Nick, Charlie Bierk

As familial and marital arrangements are being continually redefined, the concept of family has become a complex and conflicted term of debate for psychologists and sociologists, the media and individuals. FAMILY PORTRAIT is an exhibition organized by four brothers who take as their subject matter their four half-siblings, reflecting on what constitutes the basis of brotherly and sisterly bonds as well as reconciling the differences that separate and define them. Each of the brothers has chosen names from a hat in making his piece for the show. Although the initial driving force for the group exhibition may be specific to the family and its members, the ideas presented in each work extend into more fundamental questions and observations applicable to a diverse range of families and relationships.

The Bierks are employing art to actively engage in a dialogue with their step-siblings. The role of the father is central in unravelling the impetus for the show and each artist’s piece. The late painter, David Bierk, is the father of all four artists as well as their four half-siblings – the four subjects presented in the show. In focusing on their relationships with their older siblings to fuel artistic expression, the brothers are partaking in an exercise that demonstrates how explicitly they are bonded, while exploring the foundations and boundaries of kinship.

Same Time, Same CRAMplex Space

2nd BONUS EVENT: The New CRAM Press Reveal

With the installation of an American French Tool Etching Press to complement a small press from Harold Town's estate, CRAM Press has grown to accommodate the new equipment now pushing the CRAMplex print studio space to its limit. No longer Canada's smallest print studio, CRAM Press remains Niagara's only independent artist's print workshop.

3rd BONUS EVENT: The New Disco Gallery Reveal

Check out the new digs of Marinko Jareb's DJ Service, Fine Art & Design Studio & Collectible Designer Toy Shop across the hall from where he first landed a month ago. Just back from NYC, Marinko has some new shit to show from the Big Apple.

thediscogallery

This ordinary mind is broken
Delio Delgado

July 2 - 28

The blueprints, found in the garbage of architectural firms at various sites in the Golden Horseshoe area, function as support for pigments and medium, and they provide the primed ground for a many-layered narrative. As discarded architectural plans, the blueprints bear the weight of their actual or potential consequences on the region that they describe, be it St. Catharine’s, the Town of Wheatfield, or Colonial Avenue in Tonawanda. Blueprints map a selected site, but they do more than mark existing geographic features or infrastructure; they offer an illusion of what may or may not develop. Reclaiming the plans rejected by others, I mark my own reflections on events that affect my daily life. I read the blueprints as visual tropes, serving as “disinformation” and propaganda in terms of location, a constant exploration of the world rubbed in our noses through daily confrontation with wars of all sorts.   Ingrid Mayrhofer

Born in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, Delio Delgado is a Hamilton-based artist who has worked for the Regional Museum of Archaeology for the City of La Romana in the Dominican Republic. He received a BFA in Multidisciplinary Studies from the National School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo and is a graduate of Altos de Chavon School of Design which is affiliated with Parsons, The New School of Design, in New York City.

Between 1997 and 2010 Delio has exhibited in public and alternative spaces in the Caribbean, Europe and Canada, including the Civil Museum of the City of Cremona in Italy, as well as in the 12th International Print Biennial in Varna, Bulgaria and in the Fine Arts Biennial of the Dominican Republic. Most recently he had a parallel exhibition at the 10th Havana Biennial in Cuba and exhibited at the IDB Cultural Center in Washington DC and at the Art Gallery of Peterborough. He has been living and working in Hamilton, Ontario since 2003.

Transitions
José Armando Medina

June 18 - 29th

Series #1, combination inkjet & colography print, 11 in x 17 in, 2010

In this presentation of combined inkjet and collograph prints José Medina draws parallels between his native Cuba and Canada by juxtaposing images that hold personal significance. Inspired by experiences in Ontario that remind them of places, dreams, and images in Cuba, he reveals a commonality between two distinct cultures and life styles.

Medina superimposes colograph matrixes created in Cuba with manipulated photos of past and present. The combined prints blend visual codes that link their past with the present in an attempt to envision the future. The veiled images reflect the inability of the human mind to retain images and experiences of the past and accurately project our memories, or predict the future. With each passing day memories fade, become indistinct, and more difficult to recollect. José stems this erosion of mind by suspending his imagination in printing pigments.

José Armando Medina and his wife Iliana Ponce were born in Santiago de Cuba where they were professors of Printmaking and Carribean literature. They have been residents of St. Catharines since November 2008.  José Armando is the CRAM Press Print Master.

Facing Rembrandt
Tobey C. Anderson

May 21 - June 8, 2010

Rembrandt #1, waterless lithograph, 28.5 x 19 cm, 2010

At 24 years, Rembrandt confronted himself in the mirror and with various expressions etched small portraits.  While he was only beginning his life's work, the early prints and drawings are spontaneous and dynamic studies of light, form, and character.  These attributes of Rembrandt, his mastery of line, and the bite of his prints are the vehicles for his compulsion to find the essential character of his subjects.

Tobey C. Anderson's Facing Rembrandt is also an exploration of waterless lithography. Editioned at the newly established CRAM Press, this suite of small printsconsiders this technique in relation to Rembrandt's etchings. As Rembrandt studied his own face to convey mood and the complex attributes of the sitter, Anderson encounters the essence exposed to others. In his pensive reflection, Anderson focuses on the relationship of his own place and the people around him inspired by Rembrandt's introspection.

The Burden of Memory
Richard Purcell

April 30 - May 18

This series of photos began with a pile of shoes. During a recent purge of belongings, Richard came across a box of his daughter's old shoes. Although she is only 6, the collection of hand me downs, Sally Ann finds, flashy sneakers and boots, filled an entire Rubbermaid container. Few will be useful for her younger brother, yet still they sit in a box in the cupboard, ever hopeful. Richard feels he is drowning in stuff.

Experiments with lighting and photographing the pile were not satisfying.

Richard moved on to a small colletion of things he found he did not want, but yet could not get rid of: A grandfather's ring (Why do we take jewelery from the hand of a dead man? To avoid grave robbery, we suppose.); another grandfather's cufflinks (worn during his death, or simply forgotten in a drawer?); a toy sold in his overworked father's pharmacy; tooth impressions of his 3 year old made after 4 surgical extractions; a belt from a blissful summer job –worn for 25 years and finally beyond repair; a photo viewfinder from his spouse's childhood vacation; his anti-depressants; a replacement butter dish, not as good as the original.

These eight objects hold enough emotion for a person's whole lifetime. A person should not have to deal with more than this.

Attempting to exorcise the various demons that were holding him hostage, he documented them in as bland a format as possible. Richard was inspired by both the portraiture and product photography of Walker Evans as well as the early advertising photos done by Diane and Allan Arbus. He attempted an approach in counterpoint to the way in which William Eggleston seems to imbue found situations with implied narrative.

Richard wondered if the emotional connections he felt to the objects would be sensed by the viewer, or if the photos would be screens for the projection of the viewer's own sentiments. He has now parted with several of the objects, and still feels he is drowning in stuff.      

Richard Purcell began his connection to St. Catharines in 1992 while courting his future spouse with rides home to the Garden City from Waterloo. He first met Tobey the same year - sleeping standing up in a slick hat at the old NAC gallery on St. Paul Street. Richard grew up in Smiths Falls, Ontario; the same small town that his father, grand father and great grandfather did. He left there after high school to pursue a Theater Sound internship at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts. In 1990 he left the theater for the architecture program at the University of Waterloo. After completing his architecture degree in 1996, Purcell worked in Toronto, developing an expertise in computer rendering and architectural animation, which led him to a program in computer animation at Centennial College. He is now the Director of Photography for Halifax Film Children's Studio. He lives in Halifax with his wife, Cassie and their two children.  

Cassie Kent

Françoise Sullivan: Making Her Mark
Pastel Works on paper

Curated by Deborah Carruthers

April 2 – 23, 2010



Pastel on St-Armand paper (26cm X 26cm / 10 in X 10 in each), 1999


Mark-making is one of the most essential and elemental acts that an artist may do. The act of making the mark, in Sullivan's hand, translates into works that are rich in the poetic gesture and rhythms that are an indispensable part of her vocabulary, regardless of the medium. Her repetitive marks read as the rhythm of breathing, like the trace of a heartbeat across a page, or footsteps across a landscape.

A founding member of the Automatistes in the 1940s, she was a signatory of the Automatiste manifesto, Refus Global, to which she contributed a seminal essay entitled Dance and Hope. In this essay, Sullivan writes, “...we must discover the effect of these different rhythms on the onlooker, because these rhythms are among our most efficient forces of communication." 1

Sullivan pursued studies in modern dance in New York with Franziska Boas, and in the 1950s she was an innovative dancer and choreographer. In the 1960s as a sculptor, she often created large-scale steel works; in the 1970s her focus was conceptually-based; and by the late 1970s, she returned to painting, which remains the focus of her artwork today. Her practice is truly trans-disciplinary, yet Sullivan often states that she considers painting to be her "essential preoccupation".

Since the early 1960s Sullivan has regularly exhibited in private galleries in Toronto and Montreal, and in numerous countries internationally including Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and Japan. Her work is housed in the collections of museums and universities across Canada. In 2001 she received the Order of Canada, and in 2009 she was promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2002 she received the Order of Québec, and in 2005 she was a recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

1. Françoise Sullivan, “Dance and Hope,” in Refus Global, trans. Ray Ellenwood (Toronto: Exile Editions, 1998), 103. Originally published in 1948.

Visual Culture of the Americas Workshop 2010
April 17th @ 8:30 pm
Hosted by Brock University in collaboration with SUNY Buffalo
Waterless Lithography Workshop
CRAM Press

Contact: Dr. Maria del Carmen Suescun Pozas
Download workshop, activity and conference outlines

CRAM and PAN Café Present:

A Taste of Québec: An homage to Québec's culinary and artistic cultures
Saturday, April 3, 2010 : 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Wine and Hors d’ oeuvres
Films : "Artist in Montreal" , NFB , 1953; and "Dedale", Filmed by Edward Locke, 1977.
Curator Deborah Carruthers will be in attendance.
Paintings by the Mont Laurier Group

Tickets: $35
Contact Pan Café: 905-687-8704

April 1 - 3

Closure
an installation by
Alan Flint
March 12 - 28, 2010

The idea of Closure is that disparate things in the world can find unity within the energies of outside factors. Once this unity of disparate things is achieved, the integrated whole becomes a self-sufficient entity. Closure is a process that establishes the relationship of disparate things, which creates the possibility for new complex realities to emerge.

Pivot. Blocker. Jammer.
Work inspired by the skaters of Toronto Roller Derby
Hayden Booth

February 26 - March 10, 2010

Having been a member of CRAM since near cramart's inception, I've only
contributed some writing – sporadically, and now quite some time back – to
the mix. After a while, Tobey kept asking me when I was going to do an
exhibition. Not being an artist, I kept playfully putting it off. Then, I
relented: I said I'd do it when I turned 45.

Well, time's up, so here we go. Since moving to Toronto a few years ago,
life has changed immeasurably. I'm having fun, which is something I never
would have predicted five years ago. And a lot of that has to do with the
wonderful world ofthe fastest-rising sport on the planet:
women's flat-track roller derby.

Since its schedule started up in May 2007, I've been the play-by-play
announcer for Toronto Roller Derby, which for a time ranked as the largest
roller derby league in North America. As a volunteer working with these
daring women on eight wheels, I've seen the beginnings and, now, the firm
hold of a sport that isn't just a novelty anymore. For all the
disagreements and difficulties along the way (this is a family, not unlike
any other), a whole new world has opened up to me. Dozens of lives have
shifted, generally for the far better – mine included.

Though I've designed a couple of posters for Toronto Roller Derby bouts
along the way, the idea to form my experience into something bigger didn't
really happen until last birthday. My girlfriend, Land Shark (a jammer for
the league's Death Track Dolls), and I had driven out to her native Nova
Scotia a few months prior, and we were goofing off at the dinner table one
evening, drawing cartoon sharks on roller skates. One doodle stuck in my
head, and I kept drawing it on every card or note I left for her. For her
birthday in February (same day as mine), I decided to turn it into a large
acrylic painting. I hadn't really painted before, but I thought it would
be fun.

And there it went... and here we are. I've included some photos I took
with Gore-Gore Rollergirls' jammer Dust Bunny's digital camera. as well
including an enlarged edition of a ToRD poster I made for an event in
the 2009 season – only this time with a look that I'm happier with.
music-video shoot in 2008 – I'm not a photographer, either – and I'm
including an enlarged edition of a ToRD poster I made for an event in
the 2009 season – only this time with a look that I'm happier with.

I have to say that I never would have taken a crack at attempting some
sort of visual art had it not been for the encouragement of the crews at
both CRAM and the Niagara Artists Centre, of which I'm also proudly a
member.

Now... let's go trackside and get ready for the jam!

Hayden Booth
Toronto
February 2010

Susurros de una ciudad
Paintings by Mauricio Reyes Aranda

February 12 - 24
Opening Reception: Friday, Feb 12th at 8 pm

Mauricio Reyes Aranda lives in Santiago de Cuba. He is a 1992 graduate of the José Joaquín Tejada Academy of Fine Art where he majored in painting and studied photography, set design, graphic design, and mural painting. In 2003 he received his teaching credentials from Pedagogical University Frank Pais Garcia. Mauricio has been exhibiting in Cuba since 1988 and internationally since 1994. His work is in public and private collections in Cuba, Canada, Columbia, United St ates, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Jamaica, Switzerland, Japan, England, and Finland. He recently participated in Afro'Cuba Works on Paper that travelled to the Lowe Art Museum - University of Miami, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the International Center for the Arts in San Franciso.

The imagery of Mauricio´s paintings and prints are rooted in the tradition of Cuban Surrealism and the icons of Santeria. His images reflect the syncretism between African and Roman Catholic religions, as well as traditional European Surrealism. He often incorporates objects and image appropriation in his work. The pear, walls, women, feathers, snakes, boats and oars, and Eleguá (the messenger god) frequent his compositions and reflect Reyes´ preoccupation with universal desires and limitations.

Mauricio Reyes Aranda and Vivian Lozano are Artists-in-Residence at CRAM for the month of February and they will give Artist Talks about their work and its relationship with Cuban Syncretism.

Related CRAM - Cuba Exchange events:

Exhibition of Contemporary Cuban Surrealism
February 13 - April 4
prints by Vivian Lozano Caballero and paintings by Jorge Luis Chávez

click on image for article and video

The Cuban Supper - A Long Table Dinner
February 13th
Limited reservations


120 St. Paul Street
Downtown St. Catharines
905.687.8704

The Best of CRAM

Jan 8 - Feb 8

Celebrating four years of unbridled avant guarde success and prosperity in The Garden City...

Participating artists:  Tobey C. Anderson, Carolyn Wren, Jose Medina, Alan Flint, Matt Harley, Melanie MacDonald, Sandy Fairbairn, John B. Boyle, John Moffat, Richard Purcell, Pam Maw, Sheldon Rooney, Dennis Tourbin, Dave Gordon, Vivian Lozano, Steve Remus, Marinko Jareb, Israel Tamayo Zamora, Angel Lobaina Borgues, Mauricio Reyes, Jorge Chavez Gamez, Scott Waters, The Judy Bowyer, Kevin Richardson, Ernest Harris Jr., Barzaga, Justinio Reyes, Joaquin Bolivar.