Trinity Square Video premieres four newly commissioned works that form the second part of our latest trilogy of Themed Commissions, LEFT, RIGHT, CENTER.

RIGHT

New work by Mark Dudiak, Gail Mentlik,
Matthew-Robin Nye, and Carolyn Tripp

Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 8PM
Jackman Hall AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario)
317 Dundas Street West – McCaul Street Entrance

Tickets available at the door or in advance at TSV
$6 for TSV Members / $8 for non-members

The evening’s programme will also feature work by renowned video artists
Harrell Fletcher, Tom Kalin, Steve Reinke, and Michael Robinson

TSV’s Themed Commission Program offers selected artists the opportunity to make a completely new work over a four-month period with full access to the centre’s facilities for production, postproduction, education and dissemination.

For RIGHT, artists were asked to create work using appropriated writing as a primary source material for the examination of contemporary political issues, considering the idea of “right” from various positions: from the conservative demanding moderation and caution; from the Republican set against collectivism; from the correct and proper and those who question of their validity; from the lawfully just and fair who declare civil or human rights on a surface; from marks, cursive figures or typographic signs that “write” and transform.

Mark Dudiak’s Self-Reliance features a nameless protagonist alone in a vast agrarian expanse searching for human contact over the airwaves of his HAM radio set. This work conflates right-wing libertarianism with the sustainable living movement through the lens of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 essay, Self Reliance in order to question the individual’s place in a wider society.

Gail Mentlik’s Certificate of Life is part of an ongoing body of work exploring family, memory, and history through various quotidian documents. In her latest video, bureaucratic process meets humanity as the artist follows her mother’s annual visit to a German Consulate, providing proof of her life and ensuring her monthly compensation as a Holocaust survivor.

Matthew-Robin Nye’s The Sailor’s Way is a vivid, dream-like animated sequence exploring Ayn Randian declarations of individual identity, changing political milieus, and the power and impotence of epic journeys and activist movements.

Carolyn Tripp’s We harrowed the wrong quarry., features graphic line drawings, patterns, and found photographs that float, weave, and burst in animated landscapes. Using the text of governmental environment assessments as a stepping point, Tripp’s creates an abstract narrative on pollution and mutation through the exploration of repetition and mechanical rhythm in sound and image.

Mark Dudiak is a Toronto-based artist who received a BFA from the Emily Carr University (Vancouver). He recently exhibited Hall, a monumental architectural intervention at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche (Toronto).

Gail Mentlik is a Toronto-based filmmaker who has been making the transition to working in video the last few years. Her work ranges from experimental to personal documentary and has been screened nationally and internationally. She received her M.A. in Media Study and Art History from the State University of New York at Buffalo and has worked as media educator, curator, and editor.

Matthew-Robin Nye is an emerging artist who has exhibited internationally in the New York Book Fair at MoMA PS1 (with Raketa Press) and the Benaki Museum (Athens) as a member of the Flux Factory collective (New York). He has recently created projects for the New York-based media collective Paper Tiger Television, the Art Gallery of York University, and collaborative projects at Modtar Projects and Spanien 19c (Denmark).

Carolyn Tripp is an artist and writer living in Toronto. Her work has been exhibited at the Blackwood Gallery, Xpace Cultural Centre, with Vini Vidi O at Khyber Center for the Arts (Halifax) and Lennox Contemporary (Toronto), The Factory Theatre (Toronto), The Toronto Underground Cinema, and the Toronto Urban Film Festival.

10:26 am  •  26 January 2012