Today's Paper

ANGELL GALLERY presents Today’s Paper, a survey of new artworks on paper by some of Canada’s best emerging and mid-career artists, selected by associate director Bill Clarke.

Paper is arguably the oldest material on which artists have made work. Historians haven’t determined an exact date for paper’s invention, but it is believed that paper, as we know it today, first appeared in China around 100 BC. (Canvas, by comparison, appeared in Europe in the 13th Century, but wasn’t commonly used by artists for painting until the 15th.)

Today’s Paper showcases a broad range of recent paper-based works by Canadians based in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Brooklyn and London (U.K.), ranging from Colleen McCarten’s sewn geometric patterns that re-visit the legacy of minimalism to Kim Kennedy Austin’s flocked works based on illustrations from vintage Canadian magazines.

The show emphasizes the variety of styles and subjects conveyed on paper, from Ryan Quast’s humorously abject emojis, Luke Painter’s and Tristram Lansdowne’s architectural flights of fancy, Ted Barker’s graphite works that are easily mistaken for vintage photographs, and Jason McLean’s stamp-pad indexes of Canadian celebrity. Unique and highly personal takes on figuration are produced by Spencer Hatch, Chris Ironside, Andrew Salgado and Sarah Letovsky, while Steve Driscoll, Gavin Lynch and Rebecca Chaperon present visionary interpretations of the landscape.