Curated by: Bill Huffman
Artists: Selina Mullins -- Patrick Decoste -- Ida Fong -- Pascal Paquette -- Kim Tomczak -- Aimie Tolton -- Mercedes Cueto -- Patrizia Durisotti -- Paolo Ravalico Scerri



Patrick Decoste and Mercedes Cueto become the bookends of this exhibition by providing our commencement and our finale. With the skill of a classical painter, Decoste creates moody and sensual works that bear more than a hint of the Renaissance grotesque. In a self-portrait and in his renderings of two close friends, Decoste reinvents and updates an age-old painting tradition. By contrast, Cueto employs a highly contemporary photo transfer process to introduce us, to her brother. She enlarges and manipulates his handwriting in order to create a series of ultimately abstract and organic yet highly personal works.

Filling in some of volumes and stories in-between is Kim Tomczak, Aimie Tolton and Selina Mullins -- each presenting photographs that collectively exhibit a remarkable range of approaches. Tomczak gives us a survey of head shots portraying notable artists, writers and cultural critics alongside close friends and family members. Despite the languid almost bored poses of all Tomczak's subjects, revealed to the viewer, are the specific qualities and characteristics of each of his sitters.

In an intimate installation of six discrete photographs, Mullins documents the goings-on in her household. Created several years earlier, these sensitive expressions provide a window onto her personal domesticity. Cinderella, Snow White and the Virgin Mary are the iconic subjects of Tolton's photographic work. Using colleagues as models, Tolton stages a contemporary and gritty production showcasing the not-so-public lives of this trio.

Ida Fong and Pascal Paquette create the ultimate works of fiction with their highly stylized and media inspired pieces. Fong's self portraits are rendered using complex computer technology and digital print output. Fusing text and manipulated imagery Fong uses desktop publishing techniques to make very public what is intensely personal and private. Paquette is fascinated by media images of contemporary youth especially those depicted in fashion advertising. His painting technique distils the original photographs into monochromatic compositions articulating only essential detail. His destruction of the media stylization becomes itself the ultimate style.

Completing our visual encyclopedia of contemporary portraiture is Paolo Ravalico Scerri and Patrizia Durisotti. Both examine the universal issues through two intimate, self-reflective and very idiosyncratic works. Scerri presents a video designed to explore the true nature of aggression and violence. Using himself as the actor, Scerri, in a series of slow-motion lunges, lashes out at the viewer with a small weapon. Finally, after several minutes of this accosting he bizarrely dies, seemingly a victim of his own physical threats -- raising questions of who really wins or loses in the battle field. Durisotti fuses the ancient techniques of encaustic painting and wood carving with contemporary images of the female ideal. Drawing with charcoal onto the skin-like wax surface she creates her stylized self -- a rendition that is more akin to Japanese anime than traditional painting or relief.

At the same time that Human Remains pays homage to the history of portraiture, it also deconstructs our expectations of that portrait-making tradition. The exhibition is a visual survey of representation articulated through the eyes and hands of a contemporary generation.

HUMAN REMAINS / RESTES HUMAIN Artists' Biographical Information

Mercedes Cueto is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, Canada. Cueto's work is inspired by personal reflection and nostalgia. Her themes and process are influenced by the work of Christian Boltanski and Robert Rauschenberg. Cueto lives and works in Sudbury, Canada.

Patrick Decoste is a Toronto, Canada based artist originally from Nova Scotia. His largely figurative work is charged with eroticism and the grotesque while maintaining a serenity that is reminiscent of Italian Renaissance painting. Decoste is currently represented by SPIN Gallery in Toronto, and has a solo exhibition at the gallery scheduled for July 2001.

Patrizia Durisotti: Encaustic on scarred wood has been a medium through which the artist has explored herself and the world around her. A medium she has experimented with since her student years in the Visual Arts Program at York University. Her fascination with personal and social boundaries motivates her to search for answers from places deeply rooted in society. After her 1996 solo exhibition, Durisotti went on to study video and multimedia.

Ida Fong: Born in Toronto, Fong has worked with numerous arts-related publications and organizations, and is involved in the not-for-profit arts sector. Fong has experimented mainly with mixed media work constructed from found objects, photographs, film, wood, acrylic, paper and vinyl. In her work Fong tries to capture raw human emotion inviting the viewer to rediscover old emotions while experimenting with new ones.

Selina Mullins is a graduate of the School of Crafts and Design at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. Mullins explores the theme of transformation -- both personal and universal -- through installation, photography, poetry and the body itself. Her massage therapy and energy medicine practice and the coordination of innovative community projects, allows her to creatively integrate new fields for transformation without drawing a line between the artistic and the pragmatic. Mullins lives and works in Sudbury, Canada.

Pascal Paquette uncovers personalities through simplicity in his urban subjects. Fusing references to music, film, photography and digital media, he delivers visual samples of contemporary culture. Paquette works with photographs or magazine images, digitally distilling emotion from his subjects. Born in Hawkesbury, Ontario, Paquette relocated to Toronto from Ottawa-Hull in 1999. He studied fine art throughout his education and trained in the mid-90s in applied arts at La Cite Collegial in Ottawa.

Aimie Tolton is a graduate of the Art and Art History Program at the University of Toronto. Tolton's photographic work is influenced by popular culture and by literary and religious characterizations. Originally from Walker ton, Ontario, she relocated to Oakville, Ontario in 1997 where she currently lives and works.

Kim Tomczak is a multidisciplinary artist primarily know for his work in performance, photography and video. Born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1952 he graduated with honors from the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr College) in 1975. In 1982, he became a founding director of Vtape, a national information and distribution service for independent video artists. Tomczak is currently the president of the Toronto Arts Council and he is also on the executive of the Audio-Visual Heritage Trust of Canada.

Paulo Rivalico Scerri lives and works in Trieste, Italy. He uses video to narrate excerpts of reality by manipulating footage -- freezing frames, repeating sequences and slow-motion effects. His images concentrate on the notion of movement, gesture and thought. The medium of video becomes a container of ideas where Scerri becomes the subject. He also creates performances that stand-alone or compliment his video pieces.