Galerie d’Avignon presents 'Ron Eady ~ Man and his World'

Saturday, 14 April 2007 22:28

Montreal - Galerie d’Avignon is pleased to announce Man and his World, a new solo exhibition of paintings by Ron Eady.  This Ontario-based artist’s Québec debut features a brand new series of encaustic paintings that pay homage to Expo ’67, Montreal, Canada’s famous international exhibition.  Ron Eady revisits Expo ‘67 with a twist: he recasts key buildings from the site as desolate, industrial ruins.  Described in what the artist calls ‘line work weave’, a trademark cross hatching technique, the monumental forms are built up in contour lines of milky, globular wax.  In Dome Nation, the American architect Buckminster Fuller’s gleaming white geodesic dome stands alone, radiating light that pierces through an overcast, grey sky.  Here, the soft, feathery structure looks more like an aging dandelion than a marvel of engineering.

Eady’s ruinous structures refer to the stark contrast between Expo’s cherished place in Canadian national memory and the little that remains of its site today.  Wildly popular in its time, the exhibition, also entitled ‘Man and his World’, drew peoples from far and wide together to see colorful, futuristic national pavilions celebrating Canada’s centennial year.  Only a few of the original structures are still standing on Ile Sainte-Hélène and Ile Nôtre Dâme.  While some have been preserved and converted for other purposes, there is no question that their original grandeur has vanished.  But Eady is not creating documentary artwork: his decaying structures are mysterious, evoking an imaginary Expo from either dystopic future or a forgotten past.

As such, Ron Eady joins the ranks of contemporary artists who have explored notions of history and ephemerity through picturing icons of civilization worn away by the passage of time, such as the great German painter Anselm Kiefer. Wistful and dreamlike in beauty, Ron Eady’s works are gems of the industrial sublime.  On exhibition 18 April -18 May 2007.

About Ron Eady
Ron Eady was born in Toronto in 1957. He studied at Sheridan College, Oakville and the Ontario College of Art, Toronto.  In 2000 he became an elected member of The Ontario Society of Artists (O.S.A.). Ron lives and work in the town of Burlington, just outside of Toronto.  Each summer he retreats to his studio in the village of Rosseau, Muskoka - a region famous for its wild, natural beauty.  “In my work, I like to explore formations or forms, whether man made, natural, or human.  Through these elements, I like to express my thoughts or feelings, and represent the complexities of the mind.  I work the surface through a repeated process of painting, burning and scraping, allowing the work to evolve, and lead me into new directions, until it feels complete”.

Visit Galerie d’Avignon at : www.galeriedavignon.ca