May Karp
StreetSpeaks

Artist present
Saturday, September 6, 2008
2:00 – 6:00 pm

"In Paris, over 30 years ago, I saw graffiti as art for the first time. It Covered the banks of the Seine River. These rounded shapes were not the typical scrawl we are familiar with but were lyrical and sensual.

From this moment I began researching the art itself as well as the artist's motivation. Throughout my travels in Spain, France, Portugal, Canary Islands, Miami, New York, and Toronto, I focused on finding graffiti. When I did, I photographed as much as I could. I hoped to evoke interest and emotion when people saw it: perhaps moving -- sometimes awesome, even confrontational. Artists speak through their art. They are the first to trumpet the news that there is change. The state of our planet impacted strongly on my focus for this show. I think these artists are examining their world and they have much to say about it and where they fit in. This exhibition will preserve these amazing works from the outdoor elements, from the white-wash brigades, even from other artists who paint over them. It is now possible for artists who follow the principals of good art to come in from the outside and show their work on gallery walls where they belong. People are used to my work being easy to look at and understand. You might find this show different--but when you see it through the eyes of those young artists you will understand that change is here."
- May Karp 2008

Douglas Bentham
Stopping by Woods

Artist present
Saturday, September 6, 2008
2:00 – 6:00 pm

The language of abstract sculpture has much in common with modern poetry. Robert Frost’s poetry, for instance, unites opposites. Art at its best, in all its disciplines, can be casual in tone but profound in effect; teasing and intense; playful, yet deeply penetrating.

As an individual sculpture begins to declare itself during the making, it also reveals a certain mood that evolves in various forms throughout a series. In these new sculptures, this mood emerges, as in Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods’, from a kind of frozen silence, intriguing yet mysterious. If we are attracted to the notion that a particular place can suggest ideas unlimited by space, it is because we recognise that in nature, as in art, there are those moments that can hold us in a state of sublime mystery—that beauty, however elusive, is enmeshed in implicit truth.
- Douglas Bentham