December 11 - 16, 2005

Dance of Sense

Bahar Daee

Opening Reception: Sunday December 11, 4-7pm

The show goes under "calligraphy-painting". It is calligraphy because of its rich Persian traditional background of calligraphy, and it is painting due to its unique used mixed media technicality of paintings. The colors used in these art works come from manifestations of both different fields: painting and calligraphy. In this collection one could observe sensation and dancing of artist's soul. Let us together share this feeling.

November 12 - December 8, 2005

Fragrance of Persia

Opening Reception: Saturday November 12, 4-7pm

Experience the beauty of mystical East in “Fragrance of Persia”. The exhibition features a collection of artworks such as textile, ceramic and painting and it is all about color, texture and traditions. The idea behind the exhibition is to demonstrate the beauties of art and artifacts of middle-eastern countries and particularly Iran. The exhibition which runs from November 12 to December 8 is a must-see event for art lovers.

October 10 - November 2, 2005

October 2005 Group Exhibition

Bernadette Badali, Craig Beal, Lilli Gillman, Edie Harlang, Yousef Hosseini, Leah Landau, Julia Olsen, Kurt Rostek, Marcia Schnoor

Opening Reception: Saturday September 24, 4-7pm

Group Exhibition

September 24 - October 9, 2005

Urban Landscapes

Ali Farhoodi, Sam Javanrouh, Hamid Karimi, Marcine Linder, Yadi Mazinani and Kaveh Nami

Opening Reception: Saturday September 24, 4-7pm

The images in this group exhibition explore urban architecture as well as breathtaking landscapes. The photos on view showcase six different visions that have captured delicate shapes, shadows and angles with the respect for all that exists.

The photos contain the urban and architectural views from past centuries in Iran, to ruins and desolate landscapes and daily experiences in Toronto. Images are real, pure and beautiful.

September 10 - 22, 2005

White, A Colour Whithout Ego

Kurt Rostek

Opening Reception: Saturday September 10, 4-7pm

White; absence of color, absence of emotional stimulus, absence of absolute existence, and the presence of objectivity.

This series is an experiment in the objective qualities of white … I can not help but to notice how viewers are effected by color, tone, shape … and any other concepts of vision that we learn … the two key words being concepts and learn.

August 27 - September 8, 2005

Women: Wanton, Wild and Wonderful

Lilli Harlang, Edie Harlang, Leah Landau and Marcia Schnoor

Opening Reception: Saturday August 27, 2-5pm

Timeless mysteries of female sensuality are explored through stone and bronze, mixed media and paint on canvas and paper. Giant swatches of colour delight the eye while cool stone figures invite you to enjoy multiple shadows and surfaces. The joyous celebration of the human form always intrigues. Four women, four insights, four separate bodies of work combine to elicit strong emotions while illuminating ageless themes.

June 11 - 23, 2005

ColorSignals 5

Burton Kramer

Opening Reception: Saturday June 11, 4-7pm

Designer of the CBC Identity, recipient of ‘The Order of Ontario’ and an Hon. Doctorate from OCAD, Burton Kramer presents his fifth solo exhibition of acrylic abstractions, ‘ColourSignals 5’. Burton Kramer is a lyrical colourist painter in the tradition of ‘Geometric Abstraction’. His ‘ColourSignals 5’ works are infused with sounds and rhythms, with almost choreographic visual references to dancing feet, to jazz, to bebop, the ‘lindy hop’, baroque music, marching massed hurdy-gurdys, Mozart, multi-layered Senegalese and Haitian drumming. In Kramer’s work, the placement, size, shape and organization of his geometry provides the musical structure, while the use of rich, often quirky colour provides the sounds. He brings the carefully tuned eye of years of successful design practice to his craft, as did many well known international artists. From a background that includes colour studies with the renowned Josef Albers at Yale, personal contact with leading European constructivist artists, and more recent dialog with website-based international artists, Kramer offers a thoughtful, intentionally light hearted visual positivism in an art scene often submerged in angst, literalism, shock and slight entertainment presenting itself as art. Often as whimsical as Miro, Kramer’s paintings are serious ‘eye-candy’ that collectors take home and happily live with. Some have said ‘It’s like having sunshine in the room’. His paintings have been shown in Toronto, Mexico City, Bogota and Vienna. Kramer is a recipient of: The Order of Ontario ‘for his contributions to the cultural life of the Province’: Honorary Doctorate from Ontario College of Art & Design and a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from ArtsToronto. He is an Academician of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and is listed in ‘Who’s Who in American Art’, ‘Canadian Who’s Who’ and ‘Who’s Who in The World’. His work can be viewed on the web at: www.ccca.ca or www.kramer-design.com/bkramer

May 28 - June 11, 2005

* Undefined

Miles Covent, Angela Regan, Regan Brennan, Karie Andre, Yvette Moussa, Michelle Mendkovitz, Claudia Bucci, Farhia Omar, Samron Berhane, Lauren Lyons, Kyla Vitek, Cathy Haung, Sarah Toomey, Venessa Harden, Moon-Ying Helen Kong, Ashley Thompson, Erin Ciulla, Talia Pennachetti and Maegan Black

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 28, 1-5pm

Indulge your eyes and question your perceptions of 'craft' this spring in the Distillery District. Experience the fresh perspective of the Ontario College of Art & Design's Material Art & Design thesis students through ceramics, jewellery & metalsmithing and fiberarts. View the burgeoning movement that truly combines the conceptual with the aesthetic - defying the traditional separation of art and craft.

May 5 - 26, 2005

Shaolin Temple

Tomasz Gudzowaty

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 5, 3-6pm

Tomasz Gudzowaty is a multi-talented photographer who has received acclaim as a photojournalist through repeated World Press Photo Awards. His humanitarian approach has included projects documenting isolated cultures and their traditions and he has also breathed new life into the genre of nature photography.

- Born in Warsaw in 1971.
- Graduate of the Law and Administration Department of the University of Warsaw.
- Member, Polish Press Agency.
- Member, A.I.P.S. (Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive).
- Member, The Sports Journalists Club.
- Represented by Yours Photography and Focus Fotoagentur.

Winner of many prestigious prizes and awards, among other:

POLISH PRESS PHOTO 1999
(second prize, "The world we live in" category)

WORLD PRESS PHOTO 1999
(first prize, "Nature and Environment" category)

WORLD PRESS PHOTO 2000
(second prize, "Nature and Environment" category)

POLISH PRESS PHOTO 2000
(first, second and third prizes, "The world we live in" category)

POLISH PRESS PHOTO 2001
(second prize, "Sports - singles" category)

POLISH PRESS PHOTO 2001
(second prize, "Sports - stories" category)

WORLD PRESS PHOTO 2003
(first prize, "Sports - singles" category)

WORLD PRESS PHOTO 2003
(second prize, "Sports - stories" category)

POLISH PRESS PHOTO 2003
(third prize, "The world we live in" category)

62. PICTURES OF THE YEAR INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 2005
(Award of Excellence - Magazine Division / Feature Picture Story)

www.tomasz-gudzowaty.pl
www.gallery.yours.pl

April 23 - May 3, 2005

Pahlavan

Khosrow Hassanzadeh

Opening Reception: N/A

Khosrow Hassanzadeh was born in 1963 in Tehran, to a working class Azerbaijani family. Hassanzadeh spent most of his youth in museums and cinemas, a refuge from the streets of the capital where he worked selling bananas to tourists. After joining the Basidji as a volunteer soldier fighting for two years on the border of Afghanistan and fighting as a conscript for a further two years in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, he chose to follow his heart and paint attending Persian literature classes at Azad University and taking art classes with Aydin Aghdashloo, a painter and former adviser to Queen Farah. Thirteen years later as his work was being shown in the British Museum he continued to work in a fruit and vegetable shop in downtown Tehran not wanting to abandon his roots.

Like many of his fellow artists in Tehran, Hassanzadeh has faced the disappointment of not being able to show some of his paintings, which have been exhibited in the West, at home. A series on his impressions of war as well as a series on Iranian prostitutes depicting the tragedy of their lives were both banned in Tehran.

But Hassanzadeh does not think of himself as a political painter: “I feel my artwork should reflect a serious subject. I hate politics, but I have been branded a political painter but really in Iran everybody has to be political.”

April 9 - 22, 2005

P5A 3S9

Kay Byrne, Carmela Laganse, Yvonne Meawasige, Briana Palmer, Sam Shahsahabi, Chris Wabie, and Yvonne Wiegers

Opening Reception: Saturday April 9, 4-7pm

"P5A 3S9" is an exhibition of work by the faculty at White Mountain Academy of the Arts. The faculty's work is as diverse and eclectic as their art practice and experience. The amalgam of this international faculty is currently based in the unsuspecting city of Elliot Lake, North Ontario.

March 25 - April 7, 2005

The Key to Heaven

Mehdi Forouzandi

Opening Reception: Friday, March 25, 4-7pm

Arta Gallery is pleased to present the first-ever Toronto solo exhibition of Iranian artist Mehdi Forouzandi. The Key to Heaven features the most recent series of the artist’s work and deals with the collision between Iranian traditional and modern art and the clash between modern man and religious beliefs.

The Key to Heaven is an installation of items Forounzandi found in an unusual bazaar in Tehran. These items espouse Muslim Fundamentalism in unexpected ways: a Key to Heaven game, a version of the Monopoly game with the street names changed to the names of Islam’s religious practices with the ultimate goal of receiving the key to heaven; a game of dominos with the numbered dots changed to Muslim prayer positions; even party hats with verses from the Koran. The idea behind the installation is to show how, unlike Nietzsche’s famous quote that “God is dead,” god is very much alive in some places and, according to the new generation of Muslim Fundamentalists, should be a part of every aspect of life. It underscores how they blame artists, intellectuals and western culture for anything that is going wrong in the world.

February 26 - March 11, 2005

Yadi Mazinani

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 26, 4-7pm

"My eyes follow life; follow beauty. My hands and eyes are addicted to the apple, to the nature and to the pen which speak of life. I frame your loneliness in a picture and offer you an apple, (not to feel lonely). Come to me and visit me, to have an apple with me."

January 15 - February 24, 2005

Winter Painting Group Exhibition

Nasser Ovissi, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Carol Maybin, Hashem Altakawi, Gholamhossein Alinasab

Opening Reception: January 15

The exhibition is a gathering of four different Iranian artists, each with a unique style and different backgrounds in art:

Nasser Ovissi is one of the most famous Iranian painters outside Iran, who finds inspiration in ancient Iranian heritage and culture. He paints in "Sagha Khaneh" style which himself originated in the 1960s.

Khosrow Hassanzadeh who had his breakthrough in international art scene a few years ago when his first exhibition in France was sold out and now is rapidly emerging in Europe.

Carol Maybin's paintings present an expressive response to the physicality of mixed media. She works on canvas using movement of line, strong colour theory, and texture to construct dynamic paintings of landscape and human form.

Hashem Altakawy with his "Apple" series has been working in Canada very successfully in the past years.

Gholamhossein Alinasab's calligraphies are high quality replicas of the 10th and 11th century Islamic Kufi calligraphies which mainly were done for the expenisive, hand written Qurans.