Toronto, ON - NEOPRIEST, an exhibition at Headbones Gallery in March, 2009, was based on an identified aesthetic that was expressed with an acronym to more succinctly impart the essence of thirteen artist’s work. From this original exhibition an over-riding identifiable subject has revealed itself. And in order to pin it down through language and to carry on the intellectual rigour, NeoBeast has been coined - Beastly Explorations Aesthetically Stating Truisms. This exhibition on view 19 February through 14 March, 2010.

Man’s separation from the order of species due to modernisation and technology is a realised dilemma. That these artists chose ‘beast’ as the metaphor that encompasses feral, carnal and primitive as well as cute, whimsical, elegant or stylised: depicts the struggle that the contemporary atmosphere imposes upon our relationship to animals.

NeoBeast is featuring Jenny Wing-Yee Tong with a soft sculpture, Klein-blue chandelier morphing from static opulence to organic physicality. Tong’s habitual use of the donkey in context with a chandelier recalls Maurizio Cattelan’s first exhibition in New York when he ‘exhibited’ a live donkey in the gallery where he hung a chandelier citing that the donkey was the artist and the chandelier was the art world. Tong’s beast seems more at ease in the presence of cultured magnificence symbolised by the chandelier. Her paper pieces ameliorate the freakiness of transformation through her delicate use of color.

Erik Jerezano changes shape fluidly, almost naturally, as pictographic shape-shifting flows with his sensitive line. Surreal and designed, the striking compositions of Tony Taylor utilise nostalgic sepia so saturated as to appear stained. He creates urban legends featuring human/animal hybrids that retain the inherent dignity of the non-human so that man is brought up by the association. Zachari Logan’s deft, sure footed rendering acknowledges the beast within man, often by referencing mythological animal-human characters. Joseph Anderson rips the sugar and spice from convention with his illustrations reminiscent of children’s fairytales while Julie Oakes opens a more graphic door to the interlocutions between the human and animal.

Srdjan Segan splays man open to reveal the beast within, the animalistic innards of man. Ashley Johnson reaches even deeper into the fleshy guts of allegory with his well rendered snapping visual sentences.

Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo’s imagery, so beautifully executed, splashes the blood of the beast to reveal the gory relevance but the seduction of his technique wins identification rather than alienation. David Constantino Salazar’s rough beast, a chicken-legged wolf gnaws on his own leg like the yin-yang of man’s perpetual ruminating and sums up how at odds man is with his animal side. But then Jesse McCloskey let’s man get back at the beast as his big eyed girl takes scissors to the balls of the menacing dog, a game of mutual harassment that they play with each other in a city park.

Man and beast - the story line of countless artworks, operatic to quietly penned - has occupied the attention of civilization since the otherness of the beast was first scraped on a cave wall in a Paleolithic attempt to depict the relationship. The works in NeoBeast show that the subject, far from having been exhausted, is still relevant today.

Headbones Gallery has been featuring artists since 1994. Now in its fifth year in Toronto, ON, the underlying mandate has been to emphasize contemporary drawing, sculpture and works on paper. A catalogue with written commentaries by Julie Oakes and occasional guest writers is produced in-house for most every exhibition by Rich Fog Micro Publishing.

Headbones Gallery is open Tuesday–Saturday, 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and other times by appointment. For additional information, please call 416. 465.7352 or visit http://www.headbonesgallery.com.

Headbones Gallery | 260 Carlaw Avenue, Unit 102 | Toronto, ON M4M 3L1