Art Metropole

Geoffrey Farmer is known internationally for producing large-scale mixed media projects that are characterized by their process-based methodology and grounded in meticulous research and conceptual rigour. Farmer creates structures that transform and activate the gallery space, incorporating objects that are often in a state of flux. Specific literary or cinematic narratives anchor the works, which are continually revised, altered and adapted from exhibition to exhibition, even within the same work. These multiple narratives are used to conceptually generate and contextualize the processes and materials produced, acquired and presented. Geoffrey Farmer has had solo exhibitions at The Power Plant, (Toronto), Contemporary Art Gallery, (Vancouver), and the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), with forthcoming solo exhibitions at the Drawing Room, London, England (2007), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2007) and the Witte de With, Rotterdam (2008).

Group shows include the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (Antwerp), Gasworks (London), Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh), Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul), Melbourne International Biennial (Melbourne). With upcoming group exhibitions, Crack the Sky, The Biennial de Montréal (2007) and The World’s A Stage at the Tate Modern, London, England (2007).

Farmer is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery.

Filmmaker, video maker, performance artist. Mostly known for her association with the Canadian neo-folk queer band The Hidden Cameras, Gratland’s visual art practice tends to center around queer celebrities, gossip and the actualization of queer sexuality. Her most famous piece Celebrity Lezbian Fists is a series of silicone fists cast from the actual hands of queer cultural icon (JD Samson, Eileen Myles and Jack Halberstam, just to name a few). Her video work gravitates around similar concepts. Her 2004 video The Fabulous Life of Raige and Payne is a mockumentary about the rise and fall of dance-sensations-turned-lesbian-couple Raige and Payne, from luscious lifestyle to their ultimate demise. In Tit Pin (2004), she asked her friend to show their breasts anonymously on camera, made a short film out of it and created pins for everyone to trade.

Born in 1978 in Hong Kong, Will Kwan received his MFA from Columbia University in 2004 and from 2004-2006 was a research fellow at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. His work has been exhibited at the 2010 Liverpool Biennial, the 2007 Montreal Biennale, the 2003 Venice Biennale, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Art in General, and Cooper Union in New York, the Duolun Museum of Modern Art and Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art in Karlsruhe (DE), the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius (LT), the Polish National Museum in Poznan, Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella (IT), the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and The Power Plant in Toronto, and The Western Front in Vancouver.

Born in 1971 in Montreal, Quebec, Lucy Pullen is currently Assistant Professor, Sculpture, at the University of Victoria. Pullen has participated in residencies internationally and exhibits principally in Canada and the US.

Andrew Zealley is a Toronto-based artist whose work expands beyond audio and music methods to inform mixed disciplines and media. His practice has been situated at the shifting nexus of HIV/AIDS, queer identity, and the body since 1990. Zealley s audio installation, Nature: This Is A Recording, is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada. He has recordings published by labels Art Metropole, Fine & Dandy, How To Explain Silence To A Dead Hare, Old Europa Cafe, Public Record/Ultra-red, Tourette Records, and Vague Terrain. Zealley holds an MFA in interdisciplinary studies from OCAD University. He is currently pursuing doctoral research through the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University; Program of Study: Safe and Sound: Art, Queer Listening, and Biopolitics of HIV/AIDS.

Born in 1973. Lives and works in Toronto.

Jon Sasaki’s multidisciplinary art practice brings performance, video, object and installation into a framework where expectation and outcome never align, generating a simultaneous sense of pathos and fun. His work employs reason-based approaches reminiscent of conceptual art while investigating romantic subjects; in this juxtaposition, Sasaki creates humorous, self-exhaustive systems caught in cycles of trial and error. In his 2010 work Jack Pine, 8’ Camera Crane, Sasaki attempts to recreate Tom Thomson’s 1916 The Jack Pine painting with modern cinema infrastructure; this fanciful gesture results in Sasaki struggling to control the crane as the camera repeatedly crashes through nearby foliage. Throughout his performance-for-video works, Sasaki assumes the role of a somewhat naive everyman, performing Sisyphean tasks with a mildly uncomfortable, self-effacing positivism. Sasaki holds a BFA from Mount Allison University and he was an active member of Toronto/Vancouver–based collective Instant Coffee from 2002 to 2007. Sasaki has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Galerie Clark, Gallery TPW, the Art Gallery of Ontario and Latitude 53.