Kristine Walkden, Centretown News
Danny Hussey, owner of the Central Art Garage in Chinatown, will be hosting the Ontario Pick 3 exhibit at the Ontario Scene Arts Festival.The NAC has chosen a Centretown art gallery that’s less than two years old as the site of an upcoming exhibit.
The Central Art Garage, located in Chinatown, will host a show called Ontario Pick 3 as part of the NAC’s Ontario Scene arts festival. Ontario Pick 3 will run from May 1-29. The Ontario Scene festival, which includes music, performing arts, visual arts, literature, and culinary arts, will begin on April 29.
Danny Hussey, owner of the Central Art Garage, says when the NAC approached him to curate the show, the gallery had been open for less than a year. “For us to be approached to do Ontario Scene within that first year was huge, and almost just a pat on the back saying, ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ ” he says.
The gallery’s name isn’t just a gimmick: the space actually used to serve as an auto repair garage. Hussey took it over two years ago and refurbished it to be a lofty, all-white open space. He says in the spring and summer he opens the garage door during shows and people spill out into the driveway.
Hussey says the Central Art Garage is different from the other Ontario Scene visual arts sites since it’s the only commercial venue.
“All the other galleries are either artist-run centres or federal institutions, but we’re not a commercial gallery where we’re on a main street, trying to draw people in off the street. Quite often the work that we’re showing is fairly challenging work,” he says.
Ontario Scene spokesperson Laura Danker says one of the festival’s mandates is to showcase up-and-comers.
“It really focuses on established and emerging artists, so for many of the emerging artists, it’s an opportunity for them to reach an audience that they would never otherwise have the opportunity to reach,” she says.
Danker says she’s noticed that in Ontario “there are an extraordinary number of artists who are very concerned with landscape and nature and human impact on nature.”
Kevin Rodgers, one of the three artists who’ll be featured in the Ontario Pick 3 show, modified PDFs from a 1960s book and three sculptures using office furniture – might not immediately conjure up ideas of Canadian landscapes, he is often inspired by them.
“There’s something about the landscape and the need for retreat and expanse (of landscape) that I’ve always been drawn to as a Canadian and I feel that some of my work taps into that. That’s why I like having it exhibited in Canada,” he says.
Hussey agrees. “Ontario has such a rich landscape tradition if you look back on the art that was produced here and I think all that is not lost on these artists. They’re all well-versed and well-studied, so they know that and they’re coming from that tradition, but taking it in new directions.”