2017 Edition

A Benefit Art Show for Paperhouse Studio
Curated by Sonya Filman

Meghan Price, For All That Was Soft, detail process shot, 2017, cotton, wool, cashmere, variable sizes

For the second annual In House benefit art show, Paperhouse Studio has collaborated with eight emerging and established artists to create new work exploring contemporary approaches to working with handmade paper. These artists, whose practices feature an emphasis on materiality and process, took to working with handmade paper in a myriad of different ways. The resulting works highlight strong interconnections between notions of labour and temporality, contextualized in relation to personal histories, geologic time, and commonplace objects.

Paperhouse Studio is pleased to host a panel discussion with select In House artists, beginning at 6:00PM on February 24th. Following the panel discussion, please join us for the opening reception at Critical Distance Centre for Curators and the Third Floor Hallway Galleries at Artscape Youngplace from 7:00PM until 10:00PM.

During the reception, bid on artworks incorporating paper made at Paperhouse Studio, on view in the Third Floor Hallway Galleries at Artscape Youngplace and participate in our draw prize for a chance to win a variety of exciting handmade goods, books, art supplies, gift certificates for classes, art works and more! Delicious cocktails, oysters, and hors d’oeuvres will be provided by our event partners.

For the second annual In House benefit art show, Paperhouse Studio is proud to present new works by Yael Brotman, Melanie Chikofsky, Doug Guildford, Tessar Lo, Tim Manalo, Roula Partheniou, Meghan Price, and Natalie Wood. These Toronto-based emerging and established artists, whose practices feature deft engagement with materiality and process, were well suited to delve into the conceptual and material potentials of handmade paper. Working in collaboration with expert papermakers Emily Cook and Flora Shum, they explored the material properties of different papers and varying models of production. With its ability to shift from a liquid to solid form, handmade paper allowed the artists to enact embodied gestures of pouring, casting, and modelling the pulp. The projects they created with Paperhouse Studio build upon practices of collection, manipulation, replication, and fabrication. In dialogue with one another, these sustained actions highlight strong interconnections between notions of labour and temporality.

More than a substrate for working upon, the artists embraced paper as a medium in its own right. While some of them worked with the painterly quality of the pulp to create gestural images and forms, others meticulously crafted moulds and replicas of recognizable objects. Playing with the tendency of some papers to shrink and buckle while drying, many of the artists allowed their projects to take shape organically, alluding to processes of decay and transformation. The works disrupt conventional narratives of production, consumption, and discard by highlighting care and time in the act of making. Contextualized in relation to personal histories, earthly processes, and the life-cycles of commonplace objects, these works function as poetic ruminations on memory, labour, and possible futures.

Sonya Filman is a Toronto-based artist working primarily in print media. Drawing upon photographic archives, records of psychical research, and written testimonials, Filman explores the ideological influences that inform these authoritative modes of representation. Filman was awarded the 2014/15 Don Phillips Scholar at Open Studio, a centre for printmaking centre in Toronto, and has previously held positions at the Blackwood Gallery, C Magazine, and Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography. She currently serves on the Board of Directors at Open Studio, and as the Chair of the Open Studio Membership Committee. Filman holds an HBA in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto, and is a candidate in the Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts program at York University.

www.sonyafilman.com