Meirenyu, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Exhibitions / January 9, 2018
Steven Beckly: Meirenyu
January 18 – February 24, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 18, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Daniel Faria Gallery is pleased to present Meirenyu, Steven Beckly’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Meirenyu is a transliteration of the Mandarin word for mermaid [ 美人魚 ]. Found in the myths of many cultures, mermaids are aquatic hybrids: half-human, half-fish. Neither fully belonging to land nor sea, they are transitional figures with transformative abilities. Closely entwined in human affairs, they are beautiful and seductive, dangerous yet vulnerable.
Drawing on symbols and themes from Beckly’s favourite underwater tales, Meirenyu casts an intimate gaze on the mermaid mythos to re-imagine our contemporary relationships with the ocean and the unknown. Working with images of light, water, and skin, Beckly cultivates a visual language of colours and textures by revealing poetic links between image and object, surface and space. Beckly’s photographs delicately hang, suspended in the gallery space, taking on three-dimensional forms that twist the orientations of up and down, left and right, front and back. Straddling photography and sculpture, his images connect the hybridity and fluidity of mermaids to broader issues of gender and sexuality. Printed on iridescent, opalescent, and translucent materials, they reflect an ethos of light, glamour, and transformation. In broader strokes, Meirenyu points to the power of myths in our understanding of the ocean and the unknown, while underscoring the need for new myths to reflect the global and environmental issues of today.
The artist acknowledges support from the Ontario Arts Council.
For more information contact Dory Smith at:
dory@danielfariagallery.com or 416 538 1880
Daniel Faria Gallery
188 St Helens Avenue
Toronto, ON M6H 4A1
416 538 1880
www.danielfariagallery.com
Hours: Tuesday to Friday 11:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Skin Deep, Skimming the Pages, Drake One Fifty, Toronto, ON
Exhibitions / September 7, 2017
Skin Deep, Skimming the Pages
September 7, 2017 – September 1, 2018
Elizabeth Zvonar
Steven Beckly
Chris Lux
Nando Alvarez-Perez
Rebecca Ladds
Drake One Fifty
150 York St, Toronto
Casting Drake One Fifty in a metaphorical ‘red light’, Skin Deep, Skimming the Pages explores the techniques with which artists approach the centuries-old subject matter of the human figure in the digital age. The exhibition highlights the dialogue between art history and the here-and-now, reinventing the erotic classicism of the past through the contemporary lens.
http://drakeonefifty.ca/whatson/2017/9/9/skin-deep-skimming-pages-exhibition-opening/
VICE Photo Show 2017
Exhibitions / August 16, 2017
VICE Photo Show 2017
The Costume House, Toronto
165 Geary Ave, 2nd Floor, Unit A
Opening night party: Thursday August 24 from 7 to 10 pm
Join us for the opening reception of our photo exhibit celebrating the work of some of Canada’s most talented photographers.
Featuring photography by: Steven Beckly, Yasin Osman, Tess Roby, Michelle Siu, Haley Stewart and Norman Wong
RSVP required for entry, subject to event capacity. This is a 19+ event.
RSVP here: https://vicephotoshow2017.splashthat.com
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L’expo photos 2017 de VICE
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
185, Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montréal, Québec
Vernissage: Jeudi 17 août de 19h à 22h
Oeuvres par: Steven Beckly, Yasin Osman, Tess Roby, Michelle Siu, Haley Stewart et Norman Wong
Le RSVP est maintenant fermé.
Ouvert au public vendredi, samedi et dimanche.
Vendredi: de 11h à 21h
Samedi, dimanche: de 10h à 18h
Water and Sky: Curated by Chris Foster & Daniel Rotsztain, Jack Layton Ferry Terminal, Toronto, ON
Exhibitions / July 26, 2017
Water and Sky:
Steven Beckly & Sarah Bodri
The Ferry Terminal Billboard Project
Supported by the Toronto Arts Council and the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation Division
July 2017 – November 2017
Jack Layton Ferry Terminal, Toronto
Curated by Chris Foster & Daniel Rotsztain (Lake Effect Projects)
The Ferry Terminal Billboard Project is a one-year pilot project and partnership between Lake Effect Projects and the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division. The project presents quarterly open-air visual art exhibitions in the 10 former advertising billboards in the inner corral of the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal.
FTBP’s inaugural summer exhibition features work by Sarah Bodri and Steven Beckly, whose photography responds to the theme Water and Sky.
Soon Comes Night: Curated by Rebecca Travis, Birch Contemporary, Toronto, ON
Exhibitions / July 24, 2017
Soon Comes Night
Steven Beckly, Martin Bennett, Sarah Sands Phillips
July 27 – August 26, 2017
Opening reception: Thursday July 27 from 6 to 8 pm
Birch Contemporary
129 Tucemseth St, Toronto
Curated by Rebecca Travis
Soon Comes Night explores images as an unfixed entity – between light and dark, abstract and representational, constructed and incidental. Painterly and photographic processes of abstraction, erasure and physical manipulation reveal alternative ways for imagery to surface over time, encouraging a prolonged act of looking and contemplation of duration. The title of the exhibition is inspired by a common engraving on sundials – in Latin ‘Mox Nox’ or ‘Soon Night’ – which reflects the work’s sense of time, and its hinging between definitive states.
Soon Comes Night includes previously unseen paintings by Martin Bennett (Saskatoon), new and existing works on paper and video by Sarah Sands Phillips (Toronto) and new works by Steven Beckly (Toronto).
10×10: Curated by James Fowler, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON
Exhibitions, Publications / June 19, 2017
7th Annual 10×10 Photography Project
Exhibition & Book Launch
June 15 to August 18, 2017
Opening: Thursday June 22, 7 – 11 pm
Gladstone Hotel, 3rd floor
1214 Queen St W, Toronto
Curated by James Fowler
I’m excited to exhibit portraits of Basil AlZeri, Marvin Luvualu Antonio, Djuna Day, Vanessa Fleet, Samra Habib, Oliver Husain, Audric Montuno, Susana Reisman, Jocelyn Reynolds, and Maximilian Suillerot in this year’s 10×10 Photography Project.
10×10 Photography Project is an annual event and publication that celebrates queer Canadians in the arts. Portraits of 100 LGBTQ Canadians in the arts by 10 queer Canadian photographers are exhibited at the Gladstone Hotel, opening with a reception held during Toronto’s Pride celebrations.
http://10x10photographyproject.com
http://gladstonehotel.com/spaces/10x10photoproject2017/
Working Title presents:
This is Two Personal
A photo show curated by Luis Mora
Saturday May 27, 7 – 10 pm
Working Title
127 Davenport Road
Toronto, ON M5R 1H9
Aaron Wynia, Alana Paterson, Ali Bosworth, Andrew McGill, Brent Goldsmith, Chelsea Watt, Christian Ordonez, Danielle Suzanne, Devon Little, Gemma Warren, Hudson Hayden, Jalil Bokhari, Jamie Campbell, Jeffery Comber, Justin Aranha, Laura Lynn Petrick, Lodoe Laura, Marishka Radwanski, Mark Sommerfeld, Matt Tammaro, Melissa Renwick, Michelle Siu, Norman Wong, Pat O’Rourke, Scott Pilgrim, Sebastian Mejia, Sebastian Rodriguez, Shelby Fenlon, Steven Beckly, Suzanna Van Der Zaag, Tess Roby, Tommy Keith, Vanessa Heins
New Romantics: Curated by Heather Rigg, 2017 CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto, ON
Community, Exhibitions / May 1, 2017
Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid
Steven Beckly:
New Romantics
CONTACT Photography Festival 2017 | Public Installation
Billboards at Dovercourt and Dupont, Toronto
May 1 – 31, 2017
Supported by PATTISON Outdoor Advertising and Nikon Canada
Special thanks to the Toronto Arts Council
Curated by Heather Rigg
Two grappling arms merge in stillness. A bridge’s shadow zigzags across a concrete wall. A cluster of stars cloaks a nude body. Glowing light meets an open hand. These four images, placed at the intersection of Dovercourt Road and Dupont Street, comprise Toronto-based artist Steven Beckly’s public installation New Romantics. Void of advertising, and placed next to the changing light refracting through an abandoned glass building, each photograph tangles the perception of light and shadow, figure and ground, surface and space, arousing a fraught tenderness.
Cultivating moments of intimacy, Beckly approaches photography as both a sensual and a social practice—an act that connects rather than distances, feels rather than explains. The project’s title draws upon the spirit of New Romanticism. Stemming from the early 1980s, the British movement elevated images of “glam rock” stars, such as David Bowie and Boy George, bringing gender bending and androgyny to the public consciousness. Invoking a similar freedom of expression and fluidity of experience, New Romantics calls for the revival of a civil romance amid a seemingly bleak and fractured world. By focusing on images that evoke sensations of love and closeness, Beckly’s large-scale images bring visual poetry and optimism to the streets at a moment when the political climate is increasingly hostile and exclusive. Embodying a sense of hope, desire, and social togetherness, his project advocates a public intimacy built by an emotionally-connected humanity.
–Heather Rigg
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PANEL: Printed Matter
Sunday May 7, 3 pm – 4 pm
Gladstone Hotel
Artist Steven Beckly, creative director Romke Hoogwaerts (Rubber Factory Posters, MOSSLESS), and publisher Robyn York (Anchorless Press) discuss the opportunities and challenges of passion projects and self-publishing.
http://scotiabankcontactphoto.com/2017/panel/gladstone-hotel-printed-matter
An Orbit, The Drake Hotel, Toronto, ON
Exhibitions / April 21, 2017
Image: Shaun Gladwell
An Orbit
April 21, 2017 – July 11, 2017
The Drake Hotel
1150 Queen St W
Toronto, ON
Azza El Siddique
Niall McClelland
Rachel Monosov
Shaun Gladwell
Steven Beckly
The Drake’s spring exhibition ‘An Orbit’ explores movement, elements in playful opposition, counterbalance, and time.
A tender touch can bend the straightest of things, Eastern Edge Gallery, St. John’s, NL
Exhibitions / January 7, 2017
Steven Beckly:
A tender touch can bend the straightest of things
7 January 2016 to 15 February 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 7, from 7 to 9 pm
Eastern Edge Gallery
72 Harbour Drive
St. John’s, NL A1C 1B1
Steven Beckly’s new exhibition A tender touch can bend the straightest of things cleaves images and objects, photographs and sculptures. Each work expresses an intimacy from touch in both content and form, interrelating the visual and the haptic. His pictures of colour, light, and skin are printed on various surfaces—opaque and translucent, hard and soft. Forming a typology of textures and producing a range in perception, they delicately bend and fold against the apertures of the gallery space. Arousing sense and sensation, they affirm paper as a tactile and three-dimensional space of exposure. By transforming flatness into volume, the installation overturns the traditional conception of a rectilinear photographic frame. As viewers navigate the installation, they encounter a space disrupted by the touch of another presence, pointing to an intimacy between the physical and the spiritual, the natural and the spectral.
http://easternedge.ca/steven-beckly-a-tender-touch-can-bend-the-straightest-of-things/
Read curator Mireille Eagan’s response to the show: http://easternedge.ca/thespacebetween/
