Playscapes AND In the Breeze June 17, 2010

Toronto painter and former full-time CBC senior scenic artist Albert de Vos showcases his fairy-tale inspired “Playscapes” series and concurrently, Toronto artist Gabriele Craig exhibits “In the Breeze”: The opening is on Thursday, June 17 (6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and the exhibits run to July 15, 2010 at Leonardo Galleries in Yorkville.

Albert de Vos states, “I use my pencil drawings to establish the composition, shadows and highlights, but I consider them art works in their own right. My paintings consist of oil-monochrome under-paintings similar to old sepia photographs. My attention is first focused on composition, then tonality and finally, entirely on colour; it is my most efficient way of portraying a non-existent situation as real.”

The formerly full-time, now occasional CBC senior scenic artist de Vos likes strange and bizarre things that come from his imagination or his surroundings, and his new “Playscapes” collection includes a fairy-tale element and a fantastic realism with a dash of symbolism. The themes often are a dress-rehearsal for a play in progress and the characters hope that the real performance will be a resounding success.

Albert de Vos was born and educated in The Netherlands and he moved to Canada in 1974, where he studied at the Ontario College of Art in composition, egg-tempera painting and mural painting. He worked as a senior scenic artist at CBC in Toronto from 1987 until 2007, but yet occasionally, he is still called upon by CBC for his expertise.

Toronto painter Gabriele Craig states, “What capture my interest are the representation of nature and the feelings that our experiences of nature evoke. My ‘Heather’ paintings, for example, represents an undulation, isolation and shifting of perspectives: The images vacillate between abstraction and representation, evoking metaphorical scenic interpretations.”

Craig’s medium is watercolour, mixed media and encaustic, and these allow her to explore ways of using layers of colour to convey inner dispositions in an abstract manner. She studied at the Ottawa School of Art and Algonquin College and after relocating to Toronto, she taught art at schools such as George Brown College and the Art Institute of Toronto. She previously exhibited her work in many locations including Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto.

For more exhibit information visit; www.leonardogalleries.com.

As a member of the Yorkville Art Galleries Collective, Leonardo Galleries participates in the free monthly Yorkville Art Gallery Walk, which is held the first Thursday of each month and coincides with exhibition openings.

Leonardo Galleries, Toronto is devoted to the promotion of contemporary art. The gallery represents local and international artists from established and emerging categories and has a significant collection of works of art in painting, print-media, sculpture and photography. Leonardo Galleries also specializes in conservation framing and expert art restoration.

Official Website: http://www.leonardogalleries.com