DRAWING 2023
Online juried slide exhibition, with playlist and PDF publication
JUROR: GIUSEPPE DI LEO
DEADLINE: Sunday, January 29, 2023, by midnight
Project Launch Date: Late April/Early May 2023
The John B. Aird Gallery is celebrating its 24th edition of this annual juried exhibition showcasing drawings by contemporary artists from immediate locations and beyond. For this exhibition, a drawing is defined as an art form used to either to create a finished work of art or draft ideas that are further developed in other media. This broad definition is intended to open the exhibition to entries reflecting a wide variety of contemporary drawing materials, techniques, and practices from anywhere in the world that you draw.
All accepted artworks will be published as part of an online slide show with a playlist and downloadable PDF publication.
ABOUT THE JOHN B. AIRD GALLERY
The John B. Aird Gallery (1985-present) is a self-funded non-profit public art gallery with a director/curator, a managing board, and charitable-tax-status. The Gallery hosts up to nine exhibits per year, many accompanied by online publications, plus our annual Mistletoe Magic fundraiser. These exhibits provide participation opportunities for up to four hundred artists year upon year.
The Aird prides itself on being inclusive, hosting several large-group shows (online or in-situ), and two or three annual Arts Council and/or Scotiabank CONTACT Festival of Photography-funded exhibits that pay CARFAC fees.
The Gallery’s mission is to provide a generous, safe contemporary art exhibition space where visual culture can be shared and explored by an audience as diverse as its makers. We believe visual culture inspires, engages, and amplifies Toronto’s communities.
In September 2019 the Aird Gallery moved from the provincial-government buildings at Bay and Wellesley, to a temporary location on West-Queen-West. We foresee returning to our 3,500-square-foot space on the second floor in the Macdonald Block before the end of the decade.
BIOGRAPHY:
Giuseppe Di Leo is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based visual artist who maintained a studio practice in drawing and watercolour spanning over four decades. He holds a BFA from Concordia University, and an MFA from York University. Concurrent to his practice, Di Leo has held teaching positions at Dawson College (1984-2017) and at Concordia University (1984 -2020) and was co-founder of the Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery (2002-2014) where he served as director and curator since its inception. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions held in cultural institutions and private galleries in Canada, US, Mexico, and Italy. His artworks have been reviewed in various publications and are featured in museum, corporate, and private collections. His drawings creatively navigate the space between biographical and global concerns that address the complexities of human beings and their relationship to the environment. He is presently co-curating a group drawing exhibition Éphémère imaginares (2023), an experimental convergence of artworks and soundscape to explore the transitory nature of our humanity over an interval of time.
KEY DATES & DETAILS
DEADLINE
Sunday, January 29, 2023, by midnight
ONLINE EXHIBITION LAUNCH
Late April/Early May 2023
*Note: Due to the volume of submissions we apologize in advance for any inconvenience caused by our delays. Our juror(s) review every submission carefully and we ask for your patience during this process. Only selected artists will be contacted. Thank you for your understanding.
APPLICATION DETAILS
- Artists can submit up to two works.
- Image files must be as follow:
- File names must be labelled Last Name_First Name, Title.jpg
- Example: Smith_Jane, Morning Doves.jpg
- Images can be in jpeg/jpg/png format.
- Should have a max dpi of 200.
- File size cannot exceed 2MB
- Submit original works only.
- Please note that improperly named files may not be recorded or will be lost in our system.
ENTRY FEE
The entry fee is $50 and covers entry up to 2 works per artist. It is non-refundable and can be paid upon submitting your application. Funds collected go towards making this exhibition possible.
SALES
Artists will be informed of sales. The gallery asks for a 30% donation/commission on all sales.
PRINT 2022
Online juried slide exhibition, with playlist and PDF publication
Jurors/Curators: Pudy Tong and Brenda Webster Tweel
PRINT 2023 invites entries from contemporary artists from anywhere in the world that you make art to submit. This exhibition will act as a showcase for original limited edition prints by contemporary artists. For the purposes of this CALL we define a limited edition print as an original artwork that is wholly or primarily created using one or more of the following printmaking processes: lithography, woodcut, linocut, relief print, etching, aquatint, engraving, mezzotint, mono-print, screen print, photo/digital, giclee and/or text.
PRINT 2023 invites entries of print-based work of all kinds from artists at all stages of their careers. Works in any print medium will be considered. This broad definition is intended to open the exhibition to entries reflecting a wide variety of contemporary techniques and practices.
JURORS/CURATORS BIOS:
Pudy Tong is the Studio & Education Manager at OPEN STUDIO.
Tong’s memories of his immigrant Canadian childhood are punctuated by the images of large stacks of Chinese newspapers landing on his family’s doorstep every two weeks, air-freighted in from Hong Kong to a small rural town in British Columbia. His print-based art practice draws on elements from journalism as the subject through which our experience of contemporary, media-saturated society is refracted, reinterpreted and reimagined. He received his BFA from the University of British Columbia Okanagan and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking and exploring the city’s various enclaves of regional cuisine.
Brenda Webster Tweel is known as a champion for urban renewal with solid international experience.
Webster Tweel is a senior associate at Stentac, https://www.stantec.com/en/about where she partners closely with infrastructure, financial, and government teams. Her roles and responsibilities are wrapped around our urban places, and how to pull that initiative forward and into our organization wherever she can.
Brenda’s focus is on process and interdisciplinary approaches—she integrates technical foundations in landscape architecture, architecture and urban design to build resilient solutions. With over 20 years of experience in leading urban designs and master plans, she has an exceptionally strong record for designing large, complex, multi-stakeholder projects. Brenda gains understanding of community needs through iterative observations and conversations, tests the ideas through collaboration, and delivers solutions that are embedded in community governance.
Outside of work, Brenda is a talented artist—she makes cyanotypes, and has been an artist-in-residence at several places, most notably at Reford Gardens in Quebec.
Tweel’s cyanotypes often deals in the play of opposites: shadow and light, movement and stillness, presence and absence, solid and void. By liberating objects from their scale and context, she encourages the viewer to contemplate the essence of form. She creates a feeling of surreal detachment, a sense of disengagement from time and the physical world.
DEADLINE
Friday, November 25, 2022, by midnight
ONLINE EXHIBITION LAUNCH
Mid to late January 2023