current
David Armstrong: crossing still
July 17 – August 29, 2010
Curator’s Walk & Talk: August 19, 2010 at 7pm
In addition to culling talent from our local pool of artists, the Gallery has invited Associate Professor in the Printmaking Department of York University, David Armstrong, to display his prints and to respond to the Gallery’s Permanent Collection. This exhibition will present his meditative leanings in Armstrong’s interest in print sequencing and the notions of reproducibility have a natural interface with what is offered at the Gallery. He mentions in recent correspondence following his first visit to the Gallery: “I’ve always had a rather fanciful love of trains.”
The vessel’s thingness does not lie at all in the material of which it consists, but in the void that it holds.
Martin Heidegger
Station Gallery’s association with print-based technologies has a deep, forty-year history. We continue our explorations into the best contemporary print has to offer with this exhibition. David Scott Armstrong was born and raised in Saskatchewan. We are introduced to the open Prairie landscape in the railway crossing sequences displayed in this room. As you experience this exhibition in the rest of the galleries, think of how these motifs and images interrelate with one another. Consider how the technology that went into making Armstrong’s images relates to other industrial processes. How are the images of wire, tape and bowls common or different?
Armstrong now bases his practice in Toronto. In addition to being a practicing visual artist, Armstrong is Associate Professor in the Print Media Area of York University. His work has been exhibited throughout Canada, as well as in the US, Estonia, Russia and Brazil.
“Much of my work is concerned with the idea of passage—the spatial and temporal index at the heart of the image,” states Armstrong. With his work, Armstrong tests the tensile bounds of the print medium and applies them to the conditions of a specific site. Here, notions of passage, suspension and containment will resonate with metaphors of the train, the station and the collection.
Some of the exhibition themes reflect on “the temporal dimension of print: its pastness - presentness - futurity.” This exhibition presents Armstrong’s meditative leanings as well as interest in print and sequential unfolding.