PAINT AND NEEDLES

Andrew MacDonald
Robert Davidovitz

March 2013

From March to May Andrew MacDonald and Robert Davidovitz fill our Main Gallery with their idiosyncratic textile-inspired work.

In Israeli-born Davidovitz's work, the textile element is figurative rather than literal: he hand-weaves strands of extruded acrylic paint into illusory mats of colour, referencing the tradition of optical and geometric art.

Davidovitz seeks to expand our ideas of what painting is by exploring the materiality and tactility of paint, and by compelling a medium more closely associated with visual art to take on a craft component. In doing so, he is also working through his feeling that in a digital age, the human element in art is increasingly sidelined. He says, "My aim with weaving paint is to bridge two distinctly different media and histories together. I believe the result not only expands the boundaries of how we perceive painting, but also the role craft plays in contemporary art and culture."

Davidovitz's practice and ideas are attracting attention: curator, writer and artist, Gareth Bate, recently included Davidovitz in his list of "Ten Up and Coming Canadian Fibre Artists to Watch," published in the January 2012 issue of the Fibre Focus Magazine. Robert Davidovitz is a graduate of the visual arts program at York University, and has been exhibiting since 2004 in Ontario and Alberta.

London-based artist Andrew MacDonald fabricates figurative and abstract sculptures and installations through the medium of knitted textiles. Eclectic in his approach, MacDonald's work is equally influenced by 1970s and 1980s computer game graphics, slapstick comedy, and the early modernist work of Brancusi and Malevich.

In his studio, yards and yards of knitted fabric have become the outer skin of whimsical, soft and colourful figures, while obscuring the materials used underneath: mass-produced plastic goods. In his most recent work, MacDonald wraps purpose-built wooden structures in boldly coloured knitted fabric. While these forms project a vague resemblance to stick figures, human vulnerability comes to mind when looking at these sculptural shapes leaning against the wall.

Within MacDonald's idiosyncratic universe, we find pathos and humor, spirit and comfort, the absurd and the bizarre, woven into "narratives of sympathy." His work provokes reflection and encourages us to re-think the role of figure-work in art and popular culture.

Andrew MacDonald graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design, and also has a MFA from the University of Western Ontario. He has exhibited since 2001 in Toronto, London, Cambridge, Peterborough and New York City.