Miriam Katawazi, Centretown News
Marc Adornato sits next to two pieces from #MYPROTEST currently on display at Union 613.As dining rooms double as art galleries across Centretown, restaurant-goers can expect more than food, drinks and good conversation in their neighbourhood pub.
Local artists are partnering with businesses to showcase and sell their art to a wider audience.
Local eateries such as Union 613, Oz Kafe, and more, are offering artists wall space and a guaranteed audience.
In turn, the restaurants receive free, unique pieces of art.
Marc Adornato is a local contemporary artist who has shown at Gallery 101 and Nuit Blanche.
He partners with Union 613, located on Somerset Avenue, just off of Bank Street.
The restaurant offers their main dining area solely to Adornato as an individual gallery space.
Adornato’s piece “What’s it Worth?” was shown at The Canadian War Museum as well as the Bank of Canada Currency Museum.
The piece is a Canadian flag made with about $1200 in ripped up $50 bills.
Adornato says he has sold more artwork through showing at restaurants than at any commercial gallery.
“Art galleries are a little bit pretentious, people get scared off from going in because of the high ticket prices,” says Adornato.
“When people are sitting at the pub table and having a couple beers and they say ‘man I really like that’, it has a reasonable price tag on it.”
The artist explains that most galleries take a 50-per-cent commission, but Union 613 takes none.
Adornato says this allows him to keep prices reasonable, in the two to six hundred dollar range.
At a gallery, he would have to double the price.
Adornato’s most recent work is a mini series called #MYPROTEST.
The series is Adornato’s reaction to inequalities he recognizes in today’s society.
It is featured on the long, right-hand wall of Union 613’s dining room.
His pieces incorporate wood, antique organ keys, and caribou antler.
This complements the rustic, cozy atmosphere of the restaurant.
Adornato says he plans to keep this mini series up throughout the Christmas season.
Oz Kafe, located on Elgin Street, just a 10-minute walk from Union 613, also features pieces from local artists.
“It’s just a good way to expose the community to up and coming artists, and a good place for the artists to show their work without taking a commission,” says Vanessa Halfhide, the curator at Oz Kafe.
While owners often find the artwork for their restaurant, some businesses hire curators to manage the pieces.
Halfhide says she has managed and served at Oz Kafe for the past four years, but took on the role of curator one year ago.
The restaurant showcases a different artist each month, switching the pieces and holding a vernissage for each new artist, says Halfhide.
A vernissage is an art opening, where the restaurant hangs the new pieces, serves snacks, and focuses on selling the art.
The pieces then stay on the wall until the end of the month.
“It kind of brings the community together,” says Halfhide.
“We like to offer local food, so why not do local art along with it?”
On Dec. 8, Oz Kafe is holding a vernissage for Jennie Lynn MacDonald, an Ottawa artist whose pieces will be up over the Christmas season.
The atmosphere at the restaurant lends itself to an array of different artists, including MacDonald, whose work in the past has featured colourful pop culture depictions of the human form.
She has also been described as Ottawa’s horror master.
Benjamin Hildebrand is a student at Carleton University.
He says he has purchased art pieces from both Union 613 and Oz Kafe.
Hildebrand says he doesn’t go out of his way to buy art.
Instead, he says he likes discovering pieces when he’s out for a drink or studying at a coffee shop.
“It puts art in your path,” says Hildebrand.
“Although your budget wasn’t exactly calling for you to go art shopping, you kind of just fall in love with a piece and you just say ‘I have to have that.’ ”
Hildebrand says partnering with artists is a sign business owners are in touch with their community.
“It’s definitely something I think more restaurants or coffee shops or any businesses in Ottawa should consider,” says Hildebrand.
“It keeps art rotating and you don’t always have the same stuff on the walls.”