From: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org (navy-soup-digest) To: navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Subject: navy-soup-digest V9 #2 Reply-To: navy-soup@smoe.org Sender: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk navy-soup-digest Sunday, February 5 2006 Volume 09 : Number 002 In This Digest: ----------------- ladies of the bleak house [wojizzle forizzle ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:25:09 -0500 From: wojizzle forizzle Subject: ladies of the bleak house tab! why do *i* have to post your articles to navy-soup?!? ;) woj http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1138747814246&call_pageid=970599119419 Ladies of the Bleak House Feb. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM TABASSUM SIDDIQUI STAFF REPORTER Toronto's arts scene increasingly seems like one giant web, its many threads interconnecting, overlapping, supporting and sometimes shaping each other. The burgeoning indie-rock scene takes a page out of the visual arts handbook, sending CDs out into the world in handcrafted packaging, while the art community often tips its hat to musical influences. So it comes as no surprise that two bright lights of the local music scene, piano songstress Sarah Slean and Louise Upperton, art director for indie label Arts&Crafts, have joined forces. Their new project has nothing to do with music, however. They're partnering for their first major art exhibit, "Bleak House," opening tomorrow at SPIN Gallery. Long-time friends who met through their music industry connections, neither Slean nor Upperton are neophyte artists  Slean's colourful paintings have appeared in her CD liner notes, and Upperton has placed her distinctive stamp on all of Arts&Crafts' albums and promotional artwork. But they simply hadn't found the time for a proper exhibit. Both had amassed an extensive body of work, and realized their similar styles would lend well to a joint show. "It's amazing how well our aesthetic fits together," notes Upperton, who studied journalism before falling into a graphic design career. "I find that our work shares the quality of being borderline really, really dark, but there's still some sort of lightness to it; something funny or weird and strange that makes you go, `Oh, that's odd.' "I remember seeing Louise's stuff for the first time and being really wowed by it  it was a whole world that reminded me a bit of Tim Burton and Tom Waits kinds of landscapes," Slean chimes in on the phone from Paris, where she's on a six-month working holiday. "We have a lot of the same influences, but it manifests itself differently. There's something wrong (in our artwork), but it's also deliciously wrong," she adds, laughing. There's a reason the exhibit takes its title from the Charles Dickens novel in reference to its Victorian themes. What appears pretty and prim in some works at first glance takes on a more sinister tone upon further inspection. In Slean's painting "The Sweepers and the Maestro," a chorus of grim Victorian women stand over a figure slumped face-down on the floor of a ballroom, while Upperton's large canvas "Ladies of the Industrial Revolution" features ballerinas with eerie masks for heads and splashes of what appears to be blood. "Sarah describes her work as `tenderly psychotic,' which I think is very fitting for her aesthetic, and I had these little cards made up that say: Louise Upperton, artist. Specializing in the peculiar, antiquated and bizarre," Upperton laughs. Slean and Upperton approach their artwork quite differently  Slean prefers to use lots of colour, often painting directly onto paper, while Upperton manipulates images digitally and then layers them onto large canvasses with paint and tissue to evoke an aged texture. Many of the 30 pieces Slean is hanging for the show are smaller paintings created in a remote cabin near Ottawa while working on her last record, while Upperton plans to show about 20 larger works. Though Bleak House may be Slean and Upperton's first real foray into the visual arts realm, they note it's just another extension of their other creative endeavours. "It's great that we can both do so many different things, and have fun and be supported in our community," Upperton says, noting that she and Slean are keen to give back to the community as well: a portion of proceeds from the sale of their artwork will go to the Royal Conservatory of Music's outreach program for kids in at-risk communities. Though Slean sounds positively giddy about her Paris stay (she'll return for the show's launch before heading right back again), as an artist who doesn't limit herself to any one particular area (aside from her music and art, she's also published a book of poetry and is working on a stage musical), she's buoyed by the openness of the hometown scene. "I feel like Toronto right now is on fire. I really do. Canadian art is really starting to get momentum  all of the arts  and really starting to regard itself as worthwhile," she enthuses. "I'm in love with everything. I'm in a perpetual state of infatuation. So to exclude something because I need to write one occupation on my passport is not fair. I guess I could be under the general umbrella of `artist,' but I'm excited by all of it." ------------------------------ End of navy-soup-digest V9 #2 *****************************