{"id":2467,"date":"2022-08-06T15:28:05","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T15:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dartmagazine.com\/?p=2467"},"modified":"2022-08-06T15:29:38","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T15:29:38","slug":"a-matter-of-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=2467","title":{"rendered":"A Matter of Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Steve Rockwell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A Matter of Perspective exhibition installation view<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A way to describe the exhibition of work at the Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto featuring Andrew Ooi and Tyler Matheson might be a study in two-point perspective. The viewer will tend to structure the gallery\u2019s \u201cA matter of Perspective\u201d show around a common focal point. If Matheson speaks to the individual and their private journey of discovery, then Ooi addresses society in a holistic sense. Nevertheless, both artists in their own way arrive at a cosmology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tyler
Tyler Matheson, Oblivion 8, 2022, mixed media on canvas,, 12 x 10 inches. Image courtesy of Matthew Zse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cOblivion\u201d half of Matheson\u2019s contribution grapples with image and identity of the self in a game of hide-and-seek. There is a sense that the thickly troweled grout elements are engaged in a chase with the reflective looking glass portions of the canvas, motivated somehow by a wish to bury any fugitive reflection, thereby extinguishing or annihilating them. These iridescent islands themselves are effectively a pulverization of the familiar seven colours of the rainbow. Is it this threat of entombment to which the \u201cOblivion\u201d titles refer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tiling grout in Matheson\u2019s \u201cParallax\u201d series is devoid of reflective properties, but possesses an iridescence that appears to have transitioned or migrated from the \u201cOblivion\u201d works. The formerly lifeless grey concrete breathes iridescence, a beneficiary of the now departed reflected self. I read this dynamic of pitching one medium against another as a measured psycho drama, not different in kind to the musings of Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet in the soliloquy, \u201cTo be, or not to be,\u201d apprehensive as the prince was about \u201cthe sleep of death\u201d and \u201cwhat dreams may come\u201d in its wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Left:
Left: Tyler Matheson, Oblivion 8, 2022, mixed media on canvas,, 12 x 10 inches. Right: Tyler Matheson, Parallax (Red, Blue, Geen), 2020, tiling grout and spray paint on board, 12 x 10 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Playing one line of sight against another is the optical law described by \u201cparallax,\u201d the everyday feature of vision that allows for depth-perception. Astronomers use its principles to measure relative distances between planets and stars. \u201cParallax\u201d brings us to the doorstep of cosmology, the signifier through which our convergent lines of perspective must necessarily pass. Grinding out the etymological derivatives of cosmology furnishes us with enough links to deliver the universe and its order down to the level of the individual self with the words: cosmic, cosmos, cosmopolitan, and cosmetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Left: Andrew Ooi, Scale Study, 2022, ink, paper, cord, 15.75 x 15.75 x 2.5 inches. Right: Andrew Ooi, Scale 1, 2022, ink, paper, cord, 21 x 21 x 2 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ooi\u2019s meticulously obsessive art is a blueprint for something much larger than the less than two by two-foot paper constructions in the \u201cA  Matter of Perspective\u201d exhibition. The artist introduces the notion of scale with his titles without delivering their literal specifications as architects might do in their plans. Each Gampi paper cube, one of 49 in “Scale 2\u201d for instance, is a unit of time and space within which the artist has, in some respects, inhabited quite literally. \u201cScale 2\u201d is a compressed set of ordered forms that viewers may magnify to an indeterminate size through their imagination, much like the film projection to a screen of a film strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Andrew
Andrew Ooi, Scale 1, 2022, ink, paper, cord, 21 x 21 x 2 inches (unframed). Image courtesy of Matthew Zse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, the seven by seven cube composition stands in for the 49 days that a wall calendar of seven weeks might represent \u2013 a way of storing time spent, and now made visible in the intricacy of its fabrication. As Gampi paper is used in paper screens, windows, and lanterns, its particular sheen and lustre, the 49 cubes serve to sift and reflect their light energy, the ambient illumination displaying the inherent beauty of a Japanese paper perfected over the centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in the making of Ooi\u2019s \u201cScale\u201d series of art that the finer tissues of meaning are revealed. Ooi\u2019s \u201canthropology\u201d is holistic in the purest sense \u2013 the parts of a whole are intimately interconnected, to the extent that the cubes of its composition are knotted together with cords. In that respect each \u201cScale\u201d work is a living skeleton held back from potential fragmentation by its sinews, no single cube being independent from the next. This perspective applies broadly to the human condition in that the individual within society interpenetrate their environment, each playing an essential role towards a harmony within the whole. Whether we like or not, each of us are mountaineers roped together.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matheson and Ooi, as it might be said of artists generally, address life energy, and how we choose to expend it. Steppenwolf in their \u201cBorn to Be Wild\u201d song saw it as \u201cFire all your guns at once and explode into space.\u201d The boosters of many of our life rockets may already have been spent. As capsules begin their descent, as it did at the launch, their countdown is meted out in seconds. Light years may, of course, separate the landing at a point, somewhere between Oblivion and Kingdom Come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Matter of Perspective continues through August 13, 2022. Lonsdale Gallery, 410 Spadina Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5P 2W2. info@lonsdalegallery.com www.lonsdalegallery.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steve Rockwell A way to describe the exhibition of work at the Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto featuring Andrew Ooi and Tyler Matheson might be a study in two-point perspective. The viewer will tend to structure the gallery\u2019s \u201cA matter of Perspective\u201d show around a common focal point. If Matheson speaks to the individual and their … <\/p>\n

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