Local illustrator and artist Tak Bui will be included in the Museum of the Street: 50 Years of Toronto Illustration exhibit at the John B. Aird Gallery downtown.
Bui has been a professional illustrator since the 1970s, working first for Maclean’s, then expanding to Canadian Business, The Financial Post, and daily papers such as the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post, and the Globe and Mail.
He also draws the daily comic strip PC & Pixel, among many other endeavours, including beautifying his Stephenson Park neighbourhood with several murals.
The Museum of the Street exhibit “seeks to acknowledge and celebrate illustration, the bastard child in the hierarchy of the visual arts,” according to curators Gail Geltner and Bill Grigsby.
Launched by The Archive Project, the exhibition gathers contributions from three dozen established illustrators. The images were commissioned by various publications and organizations for distribution in print.
The underlying goal of the show is to bring recognition to “Canada’s unsung creative sector” and to encourage preservation of original works.
John B. Aird Gallery is at 900 Bay St. Museum of the Street opens today, Jan. 12, and runs until Feb. 5. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, Jan. 14.
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Yellow House Gallery owner Christina Kostoff will be joined by Erika James and Robert Donnelly for The Sword or the Brush 2016, a text-based show running at Yellow House from Jan. 14 to Feb. 13. The annual show explores how language “transmits meaning and power between the artist and the viewer.”
Donnelly is a Toronto-based artist working in multiple disciplines. He exhibits locally and has created work with Ontario Arts Council grants.
James is a multimedia and installation artist. Her work has been shown nationally, including during Nuit Blanche. Her sculpture is used as ambient lighting throughout the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.
Kostoff is a mixed media artist and graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is on display in the Annex neighbourhood as part of Open Field Collective’s Street Projects. Kostoff and James are both members of the collective.
An opening reception will be held from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 14 at Yellow House, 921 Kingston Rd. RSVP for the reception by emailing christina@yellowhousegallery.ca.
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Neighbourhood Gallery, the art gallery at the Neighbourhood Universalist Unitarian Church in the Gerrard India Bazaar, will feature two new exhibitions starting this month.
From Jan. 24 to April 3, the north gallery will highlight the detailed ink drawings of Rahul Jain.
The Mississauga-based artist uses fine ink lines to create his nature-inspired work. He attempts to use the “almost magical power of a simple line” to express his passion for his subjects.
During the same period, Peter Marmorek’s Stalking the City Scene will hang in the south gallery. Featuring heavily digitally altered images of Toronto, the show includes the most recent work of a photographer who has been shooting for 60 years.
Adopting digital technology after four decades in his darkroom, Marmorek’s photos are mostly shot while wandering his High Park neighbourhood with his four-legged friend Rui.
He writes that his goal is “not to produce an accurate reproduction of a scene, but to reveal its essence.”
Neighbourhood Gallery is at 79 Hiawatha Rd., and is open for viewing after Sunday services and by appointment.
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Studio 888 has been quietly bringing East End art to the east end of Queen Street since mid-2015.
Operated by artist Liz Russ, who ran the much-loved Gallery 888 in Leslieville for many years, the storefront studio features work from mostly local artists.
Russ is holding a sale until Feb. 7, with deals on work from herself, Pat Leary, Lee Goldman, Jeanne Isley, Marlene Pape, Pam Burt, and Nancy Kennedy. All proceeds go the artist with no gallery commission.
Studio 888 is at 2359 Queen St. E. The studio is open from 2 to 6 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends, as well as during those hours favoured by creative businesses: by chance or appointment.
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The Kingston Social, 1427 Kingston Rd., is hosting Dancing Between the Lines of the Built and the Un-built, paintings and mixed media art by Les Luxemburger.
Luxemburger’s work focuses on human and natural interaction with the urban environment, and environmental degradation.
“My art helps me come to terms with feelings of isolation and despair at global environmental loss and destruction within urban and suburban environments,” he writes in his statement.
The show runs from Jan. 15 to Feb. 12, with an opening reception at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 23.
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Gerrard Art Space is hosting The Narrative Storyboard Show, on now until Jan. 25. Work by local artists Jyne Greenley and Steven McCabe is featured. Gerrard Art Space is at 1475 Gerrard St. E.
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Artisans At Work features Inspired By Animals for the month of January. Artwork in all sorts of mediums will feature animals of all sorts until Jan. 29. The gallery is at 2071 Danforth Ave., just west of Woodbine.
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