The winter show at Lula comes from our friend Aron Packer at
Packer Schopf Gallery.
McGinnis' epic paintings can be seen in the dining room. The dilapidated structures she paints are surrounded by topiary
gardens of a misdirected beauty, suggesting man’s desire to control nature.
Aron has a great
eye and represents some amazing contemporary artists and outsider artists so we
were really excited to pick through his collection. To dig through his stock room is a unique experience. We
uncovered delights that reflect Aron’s longstanding interest in outsider work such as the
Cowboy Drawings of Harry Young as well as the very contemporary and highly
crafted work of Renee McGinnis.
Along with the
macro approach in the epic scenes of broken ships, McGinnis also takes a micro
approach as she dissects and magnifies the life found in the lush green
topiaries. In her Unified Field Theory work McGinnis places the viewer directly
over a circular symmetry of insects. When you see these precise paintings
you’ll wonder if you are seeing a close up of an atom or the universe itself.
On display in the bar is the The Harry Young collection as well as works by L.C. Spooner. The former includes a number of handmade
figures on cardboard that were found in a large wooden box with "Harry
Young, 38 Inkerman, St. Thomas, ON" scratched on the inside. The box
originally included over 350 cardboard figures of cowboys, lawmen and horses. The vast
majority are hand drawn, though here are a handful of figures that have faces collaged from newspaper ads for cowboy movies.
The box also contains a number of other miscellaneous items, including a wearable
Marshall's badge and a small, handwritten book of "laws," which
establishes rules for cowboy life, morality and justice.
The second artist in the bar, L.C. Spooner, was an inventor of the practical and the
fantastic. His artistic production, created between 1911 and 1934, blueprints for machines and everyday life objects based on the
principle of self-propulsion (self-propelled motors, self-propelled trash cans,
self-propelled scales, self-propelled finger-lifter, etc.). The triumphs of
industrial development in the beginning of the 20th century were, without any
doubt, the source of inspiration for those who have been called "crazy
inventors". L.C. Spooner signed his drawings "L.C. Spooner
Inventor".
The Winter show will be up until April 20 with a reception to be held on April 17, 6-9.
