Cynthia-Reeves to Launch Fall 2014 Art Fair with Art Toronto, 10/24-28

CYNTHIA-REEVES launches its Fall 2013 art fair lineup with Art Toronto, Canada's premier modern and contemporary art fair, opening with a VIP preview on October 24th and running through Monday, October 28th. Expanding its international initiatives in both public art and art fair showings, CYNTHIA-REEVES will proudly debut artworks by two fellow Canadian artists, Catherine Farish and Yechel Gagnon, along with work on paper and sculpture from American artist, Jonathan Prince, and award winning documentary photography by Chilean artist Tomas Munita, among other featured artists.

A recipient of the Grand Prize for Printmaking in Quebec and the Acquisition Award from the City of Montreal, Catherine Farish's signatory work on paper explores abstraction and text in a concise palette. Farish's discrete works each tend to focus on a principal color, from earthy brick reds to muted blues and greens and vary in size from intimate works installed in a series, to larger singular pieces. While the works read abstract, Farish sometimes incorporates text, albeit in an elusive way, where the words function visually in her composition, rather than for their meaning. She has used many different paper types for her printmaking, from Japanese papers to more unusual materials, like perforated sheet music scrolls previously used by automatic pianos. Farish lives and works in Montreal.

Like Farish, Yechel Gagnon is drawn to unusual materials; in Gagnon's case, quotidian plywood as the basis for her bas-relief sculptures. Working her material of choice with power and hand tools, Gagnon removes layers of wood and glue to reveal hidden patterns and create gestural and contemplative works.

Inspired by the unique nature of each plywood sheet, Gagnon is in constant "dialogue" with her material, at times allowing unique features to guide her creative process and at other times imposing her aesthetic vision upon the wood. Gagnon states, "The wood stratification contains an intriguing vocabulary of knots, textures, hues and manufacturing defects that creates their character. In the beginning I have to take them into account but soon I am carried by these elements which stimulate my imagination." In this newest series, Gagnon incorporated color, featuring organic blues, soft creams and peaches in addition to the carved wood. Gagnon is completing a pair of public art showings in Quebec, including a recent installation of mural sized wood-bas reliefs at the Saint-Anicet Church in Quebec.

In contrast to Farish and Gagnon's abstraction, Santiago- based photographer, Tomas Munita's poignant and lyrical photographs offer a window into myriad cultures. He explores ritual, daily life and crisis, capturing his diverse subjects with arresting beauty and delicacy. In his pictures, the balance of rawness with humanity has drawn critical acclaim for his affecting documentary work done while on assignment for the New York Times, National Geographic, and other publications. Working with Michael Kimmelman, the acclaimed New York Times architecture critic, Munita won the All Roads National Geographic Award for his work on Lost Harvest-the death of the Loa River. Most recently, he won the Chris Hundros Fund award, which he used to expand his fine art photography through a three-month residency in Patagonia. His work is published regularly in The New York Times, Geo, Time, National Geographic, Courrier International, Le Monde, Stern, Der Spiegel, Sunday Times, La Tercera and many others.

CYNTHIA-REEVES will present the newest work from Torn Steel sculptor, Jonathan Prince, whose lexicon continues to stretch the "seemingly" physical limits of rigid material, such as stainless steel. The artist works explore the tension between the perfect and the organic, the whole and the broken, which remains a seminal thesis in Prince's sculpture. "For me, the ideal representation of physical perfection is Euclidean Geometry, the translation of mathematical axioms into pure forms. The attenuation of those forms by breaking - tearing - scarring - pixelating - etc., all expose our humanity - the idea that try as we might, we are anything but perfect. Yet, I like to believe that the breaks, tears and scars can all possess an inherent beauty of their own."

For Circular Stack (2013), a pedestal-based work, the artist "pixelated" the tubular form's side surfaces, an exacting process in which he individually welded and polished hundreds of steel rods. A pair of his black Zimbabwe granite sculptures, Red (2007) and Umbra (2008), are currently on view at Hudson River Park's Pier 64, in Prince's fourth public art exhibition in New York City. Entitled LIGHT / DARK, the installation will remain on view for six months starting in October, and is a collaboration with CYNTHIA-REEVES Projects, ABC Stone, and the Hudson River Park Trust.

Art Toronto exhibiting artists include: Sarah Amos, Catherine Farish, Yechel Gagnon, Tomas Munita, Jonathan Prince, Ray Ruseckas and George Sherwood. For more information, and/or to request high resolution images, please contact the gallery at: 212.714.0044 or visit us online at: cynthia-reeves.com.