© Richard HuangIn the introduction to his celebrated book The Story of Art, E. H. Gombrich gets straight to the point: “There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.”
© Richard HuangToronto holds The Artist Project, a contemporary art fair, every year; this year marked its tenth edition. Its name happens to echo good old Gombrich’s observation perfectly. In other words, this is not merely a marketplace for art, but also a stage for artists.
© Richard Huang
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangSince this was an artists’ fair, I decided to focus on the artists themselves and talk with as many as I could. When circumstances allowed, I also hoped to make their portraits.
© Richard HuangAs a photography enthusiast, I was naturally drawn to the photographic work. The pictures were colourful and eye-catching, but the technique seemed fairly straightforward. Curious to know what lay behind them, I cornered the photographer for an explanation.
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangThe artist, Brian, told me that he loved the look and feel of gemstones—though to me they looked rather like glass marbles—so he had made them his focus. His work can be found in collections in the United States, France, Australia, and Hong Kong.
I asked whether the hardest part of making these photographs was collecting all those glass marbles. Gemstones, I mean. With so many varieties, where had he found them all? Surely the collection had taken ages to assemble?
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said. “There’s a Chinese website called Taobao, and everything is very cheap. I usually order several large boxes at a time and then pick out what I want. They have every style imaginable.”
So that was the secret… No wonder still-life photographers all go prop-hunting on Taobao.
I asked if I could make his portrait. A photographer through and through, he immediately struck a pose of his own.
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangNext, these abstract paintings caught my eye.
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangI asked the artist, Morgan, why he had painted so many sheep.
He gave me a startled look. “Are you sure they’re sheep? They’re cows.” He pointed to the label beside the work. Sure enough, it read RAINING COWS. Oh dear, I thought. My apologies to the cattle.
Morgan said it did not matter. With art, if you see a god, it is a god; if you see a ghost, it is a ghost. There is no single correct answer.
Born and raised in downtown Toronto, Morgan graduated from OCAD University. His Raining Cows series grew from his fascination with rain, colour, and cows. The cows are rendered graphically, while the visible shapes and splashes of rain create an almost three-dimensional sense of suspension. Colour, clouds, rain, and graphic forms come together to evoke serenity and happiness.
In 2018, he designed seven Raining Cows phone cases for Samsung.
When I asked to make his portrait, he told me not to leave out his shirt. Sure enough, it was covered in the Raining Cows pattern too. Now that was serious devotion to cows.
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangI enjoy photographing street art. As I often say, a city without graffiti is a city without colour. Yet there was something unusual about this artist’s graffiti photographs.
© Richard Huang
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangOnly when I moved closer did I realize that the artist, Pascal, had sprayed graffiti paint directly over the photographs, creating a second layer of work. It also made every piece unique.
I asked why he added the spray paint, but either I had not phrased the question clearly or our interests simply differed. He kept explaining how he made the photographs. Since most were shot at night, they required long exposures, which caused the lights to become overexposed. He therefore took a great many bracketed exposures and gradually composited them into a single image.
Even so, it was the act of adding graffiti to the photographs that I found most interesting.
© Richard HuangSwimming pools are an enduring subject in photography. Apparently, painting is no exception…
© Richard Huang
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangI asked the artist, Stephen, whether his paintings contained a great many symbols and metaphors.
The answer was plain to see. His paintings possess a quiet air of mystery. A story seems to be unfolding, though its meaning is not always obvious. The works reveal several layers of information: social commentary, humour, symbolism, and dreamlike imagery. Animals, nature, humanity, technology—and the places and moments where they intersect—appear again and again. His varied brushwork produces a kind of stylized realism, with smooth tonal transitions and subtle use of light and shadow.
He told me that he liked blue. When I photographed him, I saw that he really did.
© Richard HuangOn my daily commute, I like to photograph whatever catches my eye on the street with my phone. Train stations and bus stops often appear in my pictures. When I came across these familiar scenes, I decided to stop and take a closer look…
© Richard Huang
© Richard Huang
© Richard HuangI asked the artist, Diogo, why he liked painting subjects such as transit stations.
He said that he lived in Brampton and commuted frequently. While waiting at stations, he noticed that most passengers were rushing about, while nearly everyone else was looking at a phone. Few people paused to notice the beautiful structures they passed through every day. So he decided to paint them.
Using paint on wood panels, he reduces urban landscapes to colourful geometric forms. His work revolves around the idea that manifestations of beauty often go unnoticed. By simplifying shape and colour, he presents beauty as a matter of balance and structure. Focusing on urban spaces such as alleyways and train stations, Diogo seeks to depict places that are routinely overlooked amid the rapid development of the city.
This is exactly the kind of work I love. Beauty is not somewhere far away. It is all around us, everywhere.
© Richard HuangBy the end of the day, I had seen a great deal, talked a great deal, and taken a great many photographs. Space is limited, so I will leave it there.
My takeaway from the exhibition: at an art show, looking at the artists is even more interesting than looking at the art.