By Allison Wilton
Shadowy black stains adorn the aging white brick and industrial style windows that make up the two-storey building on Gladstone Ave. in Little Italy. Though dark and dingy, this former bread factory is where 24 people, known as the Enriched Bread Artists, call home.
Around every corner is a different world of colour and inspiration. Like changing seasons, each room has its own style, one full of blue and green tones, another of yellow, orange and brown.
From painting and sculpture to installation art, the EBA studio artists use paint, mirrors, and light as tools to express their differing tastes. All in all, a refreshing contrast to the somewhat dreary exterior of the building and its past.
Most days, the EBA studios are closed to the public, but now the artists are working frantically to finish their works and set up for their annual open house. The EBA will host its 10th anniversary open studio exhibition Oct. 17. This year’s theme will celebrate 10 years of contemporary art and, of course, bread.
EBA artist Maureen Sandrock specializes in installation art and sculpture. She plans to ring in the 10th anniversary by displaying two ceramic dishes she created, filled with uncooked bread dough.
“I’m going to colour the dough and have the Chinese and Arabic symbols for the word ‘bread’ written on top. Bread is universal, everyone eats it,” says Sandrock. “Because of the yeast in the bread it will take shape and rise over time, which is all very symbolic. I like movement in my art.”
But Sandrock’s passion for culture and life go even further. As a nurse, she gained an interest in the human body and the various internal body parts. Sandrock expresses her interest through art, sculpting a collection of ceramic valves, lungs and kidneys.
Her other works include a large ceramic heart, glazed with a fleshy shade of blood red, and a series of paintings that she says represent various cycles of life.
“I’m interested in the essence of the human being,” says Sandrock. “We’re all the same. No one can get away from the biological, the physiological, cultural or spiritual.”
Over the years, the EBA gained prestige in the Ottawa arts community making it one of the more sought out studio space locations for local artists.
John Barkley joined the EBA six years ago. Dressed in paint-covered clothes, paintbrush never leaving his side, Barkley spends his days layering hundreds of colours onto massive canvases.
“There is something about going down there,” says Hedda Sidla-Monner, a new addition to the EBA family as a painter. “There is just so much passion in John’s studio, it’s wonderful.”
Barkley describes his series of paintings allotted for the exhibition as abstract landscapes inspired by the confrontation between industry and the environment. Barkley uses colours such as the yellows and oranges of the construction industry layered on top of the blues and greens of nature to illustrate this tension.
“This is really a fun show to have,” says Barkley of the upcoming exhibition. “It’s neat seeing all of the artists coming together, and it gets to be quite exciting.”
The Enriched Bread Artists factory was created in 1991 by Laura Margita, a graduate from the fine arts program at the University of Ottawa.
The 10th anniversary exhibition will celebrate its opening night full of painting, sculpture, photography, installation art and performance art on Thursday, Oct 17 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The exhibit continues Oct. 18-Oct. 20 and Oct. 25-Oct. 27 at 951 Gladstone Ave.