I recently visited the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) during my trip to Toronto. I wanted to share some of the art I saw and my thoughts on it. If you do find yourself in Toronto, I would definitely recommend stoping by the AGO.
This was probably my favorite piece that I saw that day. It is part of a collecction called 1 to infinity where Opalka began writing each number from 1 using white paint on a black canvas. The canvas got closer and closer to white as he counted increasingly larger numbers and in the end, the color of the canvas and the paint were both white. I like the use of the blank white canvas to end the work as it is similar to a mathematicians approach of using the limit as x tends to infinity to solve problems. Additionally, from afar it just looks like a simple grey painting with some lines, but looking closer reveals much more about the work. It's a metaphor for most things around us, where it looks simple from afar but you have to look closely to understand what is happening.
Although the subject is this paining is relatively simple, I really liked the use of colors and shapes to recreate it which adds a new dimenion to the piece.
For the following painting, the thing that initially caught my eye was the bright and vibrant colors created by Monkman (honestly, the photo doesn’t do it justice). It pulls you into the painting and forces you to explore the scene. While I do not understand what the nude men are doing, there is a clear group of people painting the scene. Each artist has an entirely different recreation, sending a message that whenver something is recreated/retold, the story will be changed becasue of how it was percieved by the person.
If you know me, you know I love colors so naturally I was a big fan on this one.
This following painting was inspired by the artist's time at Cape Pine. When she showed up she couldn't see anything throught the thick fog for a few days. I enjoyed how well the artist recreated the visual effect of being surrounded in fog in this work.
And lastly, not a piece of art per se, but this room was gorgeous! Coffee wasn’t bad either.