Gary Michael Dault and Barbara Lounder at Wynick/Tuck Gallery (401 Richmond West), to June 19. 416-504-8716. Rating: NN Rating: NN
Start your timers. I have only one minute to write this review. A minute. Too short. Can’t get fingers moving. Can’t get thoughts out. Am feeling like artist Gary Michael Dault with only a minute in the mornings to paint before son comes down to breakfast. See what he can do with paint set and cereal box. Too rushed. No time for details, grammar or sentence structure. I want to… oops, time’s up. Print publications, like art galleries, usually offer final products and complete works. The public understands and expects this, which is why Dault’s one-minute wonders at the Wynick/Tuck Gallery seem more like the sugar fix of frosted Coco Pops than the satisfaction of Mueslix.
The colourfully appealing pieces painted on cereal boxes playfully use techniques like scraping the paint to show the box underneath. But like my mock review above, they feel underdeveloped, especially for a full gallery show.
Some of the 60-second landscapes, however, are impressive. Corn Pops, for example, soar over mountains and oceans like fireworks about to explode. But you can tell by the paintings that time was tight. The artist often missed the opportunity to integrate the original images on the boxes into his cardboard canvases.
Sharing the space with Dault in the first of the gallery’s Artists Present series is Barbara Lounder , who exhibits a floor installation of the Fraser Scottish tartan using thinly painted cereal-box cut-outs.
art@nowtoronto.com
