Wednesday, June 01, 2022

Michael Janis & Tim Tate 2 person show in Toronto’s Sandra Ainsley Gallery

“One Story Is Not Enough”

June 3-July 30, 2022

Sandra Ainsley Gallery

Tim Tate and Michael Janis each grew up as avid readers, each finding the imaginary world as often much more enticing, beautiful and adventurous as what they found around them.

Glass masters Tim Tate and Michael Janis

When Michael Janis and Tim Tate met, almost 20 years ago, they discovered a shared fascination of narrative sculpture - one that seeks to arrive at an image that is both unflinchingly candid in physical representation and psychologically evasive. Working together, they are interested in the simultaneous read of an immediately recognizable image that asks the viewer to linger over history and meanings that unfurl more slowly. Mark, line and material become an extension of touch in the act of representation. The relationship of hand to subject, negotiated through the material, can elicit a response of both visual and tactile.

With these confines they create work in many techniques, but if you stand slightly back and see their history a huge thread of interconnected stories weave through their work from day one. The beauty comes into focus and the viewer sees the edges of a world not dissimilar to this one, but so much more thoughtful.

They present this glimpse into that alternative world, seemingly unstuck in time somewhere between past and future.

Details here.