Design We Love – Venice Chairs

These exquisite, custom-made, classical Venice chairs from Industrial Storm somehow manage to epitomize both modernist severity and economy of line with with a luxurious sense of timeless, old-world comfort. The chairs come in two models (one slightly larger than the …

ART WE LOVE: Two Door Mats by Gerald Ferguson

Halifax-based conceptual artist Gerald Ferguson (1937-2009) always did everything he could to avoid making beautiful paintings—but ended by making them anyhow, almost against his will.  One of his ploys was to distance himself as much as possible from the actual …

Art We Love: Shayne Dark “Bough Laden with Fluorescent Orange”

Art We Love – Steve Driscoll’s “CEDAR FALLS”

This prodigious, unreasonably beautiful painting is titled Cedar Falls. It’s huge (9 ‘; x 10), and glistens like a wet forest with the pigmented urethane with which it is painted.

The painting is by a young,Toronto-based painter named Steve Driscoll. …

ARTCONDOS: ART WE LOVE JOY by Kai Chan.

We dropped into the nearby David Kaye Gallery the other day to see new work by the celebrated Chinese-Canadian artist Kai Chan.  Chan, who was born in China in 1940 and has lived in Toronto since 1966, is the recipient …

Art We Love – Thrush Holmes

The lyrically named Thrush Holmes (yes, it’s his real name!) is not what you’d call a repressed painter.  This gigantic work–about as big as a Still Life painting ever gets–is 84″ x 180,” and is emblazoned with the artist’s trademark …

Art We Love -Verso’s Battered First Aid Boxes

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Art we love: Roland Brener’s Swinger

Among the many remarkable works in the current summer exhibition at the Olga Korper Gallery is a piece by the late Roland Brener (1942-2006) called Swinger. Swinger began in 1999, as a hand-built, laminated plywood figure of a standard-issue businessman …

Art we love: Peak Gallery owner Zack Pospieszynski

We consider Zack Pospieszynski–owner-director of Peak Gallery–to be a man of discriminating taste and lucid opinions, and so we dropped by the gallery the other day to ask him about his current likes and dislikes in contemporary art. The …

Art we love: ceramics by Robert Archambeau

We’ve not always been big fans of ceramics–a lot of it seems artsy and sentimental– but we’ll always make an exception for the exquisite stoneware pieces of veteran ceramics artist Robert Archambeau. Archambeau, who won the Governor General’s Award in …

Art we love: Sacred and Profane Love (Self-Portrait II) by Harold Klunder

Harold Klunder is everywhere regarded as one of Canada’s most powerful painters.  His latest exhibition, Black Sun, now at the Clint Roenisch Gallery is a remarkable experience, both for the majestic trio of paintings making up the Black Sun …

Art We Love: Ominous Footpath by Susanna Heller

Veteran painter Susanna Heller–Canadian born, educated at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and now living in New York City (where she has lived, in fact, for many years now)–is a maker of exceedingly vigorous, searching, …

Design we love: horse brasses at Index G Gallery

This personable cat is a typical example of what are known as horse brasses – that is, solid brass castings used as tackle fasteners and sometimes just as decoration for parade horses. They were at the height of their popularity …

Art we love: Art Brownies

These hotly coloured, inventively composed mini-blocks of art activity are, in fact, Art Brownies: small, unique works of art made by various artists, both local and international, on one standard format, each Art Brownie being a mini-canvas consisting of a …

Art we love: About the River by Thrush Holmes

When a relatively unknown, soft-spoken, 26 year old artist with the lyrical name of Thrush Holmes (his full name …