Main Gallery

Reception: Saturday 27 February 2010 at 7pm

TRIAL PROOFS
Élène Tremblay

"Ad Hoc" is an exhibition of photographs by two artists from the Kingston region, Noel Bullock (a founding director of Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre in 1977) and Jocelyn Purdie (currently the Director of the Union Gallery at Queen's). Both artists present a body of work that investigates a phenomenon of “vernacular” architecture. Purdie provides a typography of the duck-blinds of Wolfe Island, and Bullock documents the displaced residents of Vancouver’s East side through portraits of their shopping carts.

The work by Peter Kingstone and Lucie Chan in Modern Fuel’s latest exhibition Storytellings gives a voice to stories from communities that might have otherwise gone unheard. Taking up the entire gallery, Storytellings presents a major video installation by each artist, putting these stories centre-stage.

Chronotopic Village gathers together the work of Nadia Myre, Kevin Burton, Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Darlene Naponse and Thirza Cuthand, who each in turn invite the audience to engage multiple and diverse chronotopes (times-spaces.) Each artist presents meditations on new and ever-changing cultural imaginaries that co-exist within the modern nation state in both its cities and rural spaces. In this exhibition curated by Wanda Nanibush, the specific locations of each artist are multiple, and how that impacts their artistic engagement with time-spaces is the Chronotopic Village.

Modern Fuel's 11th Annual Regional Juried Exhibition will be presented at Modern Fuel from August 8th to September 5th, 2009, with an opening reception on August 29th at 7pm. The curatorial premise for this group exhibition is to reflect the wide-ranging practices of artists in the Kingston region and is meant to provide a forum in which to compare artistic modalities from one year to the next.

Modern Fuel’s latest exhibition “Sadderday Night” is an immersive experience of light, sound, and colour. Mike Murphy and Anders Oinonen have collaborated on a full-scale installation that transforms and unfolds the space of the gallery.

As part of Cubafest, Kingston’s celebration of Cuban culture, Modern Fuel is proud to host a talk with Cuban curator and art critic Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda, a member of the curatorial team for the 10th Havana Biennial.

The works in the main gallery exhibition, “Transactions of the Eye,” act as a bridge between featured artist Harold Coego’s two home countries: Cuba, where historical and cultural heroes surrounded him, and Canada, where new characters and new human interactions shape a different life.

Featuring the drawing installations of Montreal-based artists Jing Yuan Huang and Jerry Ropson, Modern Fuel’s newest exhibition, Wind from the East, offers varying interpretations on what it means to come from the East, and whether or not geographical directions have any bearing on today’s globalized art practice.

Thinking Inside the Box features the video installations of Montreal-based artist Christopher Flower. Flower’s video installations explore interactivity and incorporate installation with the mechanical processes and spatial complexities of kinetic sculpture.