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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE La Raza Group Presents – CHE ARGENTINA! A Fund-Raiser for La Raza Group’ s Argentinean Mural and Orphan project in Buenos Aires. Canadian Art Collective La Raza Group requests your
attendance at their official Montreal-Argentina project launch on Friday, March
24, 2006. 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm. Please bring friends and guests. Featuring; Tango Performances by: Marjolayne Auger
and Elias Navas, plus music from Argentinean pianist Victor Simon and also
a premiere showing of the La Raza Group documentary film
"La Raza : Full Circle"
by director Tom Tobin. At The McAuslan Visitor Centre 5080
Rue St Ambroise, Montreal,
Quebec Directions
http://www.macleod9.com/contact.html International Art Collective La Raza Group
www.larazagroup.com have organized this fund-raiser for their public mural
and orphan outreach program. They have been invited to Buenos Aires this
October to create a series of outdoor murals and participate in a series
of street performances with Tango dancer Marjolayne Auger
www.tangoyalgomas.com to raise funds for Argentinean orphans. This
initiative is also designed to encourage art and music exchanges between
Montreal and Buenos Aires. So join us at the McAuslan Visitor Centre for a
night of Art from La Raza Group, Tango from Marjolayne and Elias, and
music by Argentinean pianist Victor Simon http://www.victor-simon.com/
and his band Ensemble Montreal Tango http://www.emontrealtango.com/.
Evenings Program 5:00 Introduction by Scott MacLeod - history of group and upcoming project in Argentina. 5:30 Marjolayne and Elias (Contemporary Tango
Dancers) will present three Tango vignettes. 6:00 Gallery tour of La Raza Group’s work 2nd
floor. 7:00 Film “La Raza – Full Circle”. *Filmmaker Tom Tobin will present his film on La Raza Group the following
night Saturday the 25th for a second screening at 7:00 p.m.
7:30 Cocktail with Argentinean food and wine
accompanied by Ensemble Montreal Tango. *For more information contact Scott MacLeod at 514
487 8766 or therace@larazagroup.com
BIOS La Raza Group Art collective - Francis Caprani, G. Scott MacLeod, & Gerald Pedros http://www.larazagroup.com/history_timeline.html
http://www.larazagroup.com/commitment.html “each
still adheres to the principles of artmaking they originally believed in.
Conformity, art programs, and museology have reduced the terrain of
independent art collectives like La Raza Group. They were
open-minded, exhibited wherever they could, even in pool halls, and
internationally. They had no agent or exclusive dealer. They
were free to organize activities independently, always with a public
mind.” - John K. Grande Marjolayne
Auger - Tango Dancer www.tangoyalgomas.com Mon
désir est de m'affranchir et de repousser mes limites personnelles. À
travers les voyages, l'apprentissage de nouvelles techniques de danse, je
me déstabilise, me sors des paramètres que j'ai d'abord connus, afin de
revisiter l'essence de la vie, de mes valeurs et de cerner le coeur de ma
recherche. Ainsi, j'espère maintenir le sentiment d'ouverture, de
curiosité de l'enfance et du débutant pour éviter de m'enliser dans un
cadre fermé. C'est pourquoi je renouvelle les défis.Optique de
recherche : en Asie, le même mot est utilisé pour les deux, c'est-à-dire
qu'un acteur est aussi danseur, il n'y a pas de séparation entre ses deux
professions. J'ose espérer qu'en plus, je deviendrai d'autant plus
humaine, accessible et ouverture d'esprit au fil des ans. Victor
Simon - Musician http://www.victor-simon.com/
http://www.emontrealtango.com/ Victor
commence à gratter la guitare à l'âge de cinq ans. Deux ans plus tard,
lors d'une visite chez des amis de son père, il découvre le piano.
Victor se souvient avoir commencé à pianoter nonchalamment et d'avoir
joué tout naturellement quelque chose qui pouvait ressembler à une
Chacarera (musique folklorique argentine) ; il était sans doute influencé
par le genre privilégié des musiciens de sa famille. Ce moment fut le départ
de sa passion pour le piano. Son bonheur d'enfant ne pouvait être complet
sans qu'un piano ne vienne garnir leur maison. Ce qui fut fait quelques
temps plus tard. Cet engouement pour la musique l'amènera à faire des études
dans cette discipline. A l'école, il étudie le répertoire classique.
Mais c'est en autodidacte qu'il acquiert et perfectionne ses connaissances
du folklore. TOM
TOBIN - Filmmaker
Growing
up in the small town of St. Thomas, Ontario, Tobin had several local
artists as mentors. While studying fine art and photography as a teenager,
he discovered foreign cinema, awakening his perception of the
potential of film as a medium. As Tobin's love of cinema grew, so did his
attraction to the unconventional and the surreal, influenced by filmmakers
Buñuel, Godard, Bergman, Jeunet and Gilliam. Tobin's works tend to deal
with issues of the subconscious, interconnectivity, dimension theory and
perspective. He has worked in film and television for over ten years and
has been fortunate to mentor under such talented Canadian directors as
Bruce McDonald (Hardcore Logo, Dance Me Outside) and David Wellington
(Long Day's Journey Into Night, I Love a Man in Uniform.) With a
feature-length surrealist/narrative film in development and several short
projects in production, Tobin continues to explore and experiment with the
medium. La Raza : Full Circle is Tobin's first documentary. La Raza : Full Circle candidly explores the working dynamic of a small, close-knit group of visual artists. It documents the group at work as well as the complex interactions between its members. The setting is Montreal 1995, where the impending vote on Quebec’s potential separation from Canada is mirrored by underlying questions of separation within the group. The voyeuristic, cinéma vérité style, captures these artists as they move from creators to promoters to salesmen in order to survive and succeed. |
|
Scott MacLeod The Sacred Feminine and Masculine: Labyrinthina by
John K Grande Scott MacLeod’s The Sacred Feminine and Masculine: Labyrinthina show deals with the
sacred and spiritual. While the sources may be ancient, as is the dual
yin-yang nature of masculine and feminine MacLeod captures, the exhibition
functions as a total environment. Multi-media effects include video
projection, and digitally manipulated photographs of men and women reflect
the stages of life from birth to old age. MacLeod reinvigorates our
interest in the symbolic sources for our own culture, long buried for
many. Inadvertently we are reminded of how our culture has lost its
sources, may not understand the sacred signs and symbols. As the
paintings, photo-works, and videos in this show suggest, our belief
systems are rooted in the world around us the cosmos and nature. Video projections of wave and
water patterns could reference the ancient belief that all life has its
origins in water (and it does), while labyrinth and mandala symbols
reference ancient views of the life process. A yin-yang symbol references
the animus-anima duality of our unconscious thought processes. As Carl
Jung has written: “Though the
effects of anima and animus can be made conscious,
they themselves are factors transcending
consciousness and beyond the reach of perception
and volition.” 1 A ceiling projection of the Big
Dipper at night, from which the yin-yang originally derived, in part due
to its prominence in the night sky, again draws allusions to the way our
cosmology is based in the real world, and responses over generations and
centuries to these effects. And so ultimately, MacLeod’s Sacred Feminine
and Masculine, is a homage to our place in the universe, which may be
precarious, as our ancestors were quite aware of. On either side, placed in the
upper sections of the walls, we see elongated ships that suggest a great
journey or the voyage of life itself. Ships are likewise symbolic of
emigration, and of a mid point between home and away. The images recall
the journey of life, how life builds upon life, seizes life only to
dissolve before new lives come into being. The life cycle is represented
in a variety of ways throughout this exhibition. We see two sets of six
vertical digitally manipulated photographs transferred to canvas of men
and of women. They are presented at various stages of life from childhood
to old age, and integrated within each tableau above and below are symbols
that indicate the cycle of life and death; a Douglas-fir tree, an acorn, a
maple seedling, the ancient sacred geometry, a raven, a dragonfly, a
butterfly. Seen as a whole Scott MacLeod’s
presentation combines aspects of human and natural history (of which we
are a part). As a totality, the piece is conceived like a hagiography or
theatre dedicated to life. The exhibition is a site that reifies a cosmic
vision of the world, with natural and human references. We live in a world
where our memory of the past is ironically vanishing at the same time as
we have advanced information and data storage systems. This presentation
has sources that are ancient, reflect our collective origins, the way our
various tribal and geo-specific identities all draw on unconscious stimuli
that links and builds its meaning with reference to nature. While the
techniques and multi-media approach Scott MacLeod uses are wholly
contemporary, this environment is about our origins and the fragile and
ongoing process of life, its mystery, the impossibility of decoding or
explaining it entirely. Footnote 1. C. G. Jung, Aspects of the Masculine / Aspects of the Feminine, trans. R.F.C.
Hull, MJF Books, New York, p. 177. - John K Grande |
PRESS
RELEASE
Three
Montreal painters exhibit at the MAA
[Laurie
Campbell], [Scott MacLeod], [Sharon
Ramsay
Opening-Vernissage
Thursday, September 25th
From
5:00 to 7:00 pm
At
Montreal Athletic Association,
2070
Peel
Montreal,
QC
H3A1W6
Tel:
514.845.2233
Exhibition
goes from September 25th to October 5th, 2003.
Laurie Campbell [top]
BIO
Laurie
Campbell was born in Montreal in 1969. She studied fine art at John Abbott
College and architectural illustration and design at Dawson College in
Montreal. In 1991, she pursued her interest in illustration at Toronto's
Ontario College of Art where she received the Herb McCarthy Award and the
Robin Cumine Scholarship for her work.
Upon
returning to Montreal in 1994, she began focusing on painting through which,
she depicts timeworn neighbourhoods in Montreal and abroad. Laurie has always
had a strong interest in portraying city life-corner stores, taverns, and all
that lends itself to the city's unique character. With every new year, modern
structures replace the neglected storefronts and landmarks ofyears past. Her
work documents these forgotten treasures and will remain historical reminders
of Montreal's former greatness and charm.
Laurie
has worked as a freelance illustrator for The Globe and Mail, Homemaker's
magazine and MacLean- Hunter Publications. She has also illustrated the book
Outsmarting your Karma by Barry Neil Kaufman and the cover of Des livres et
des coups de foudre by editions Lacombe. In 2002, Laurie became an elected
member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolours (CSPWC).
The
artist continues to produce work in both watercolour and oil and is
represented by A.H, Campbell Gallery in Montreal and Roberts Gallery in
Toronto. Her paintings are in private collections in Canada, the U.S.,
Austria, France, Switzerland and England.
www.campbellpictureframing.com
G. Scott MacLeod [top]
BIO
Scott
MacLeod grew up in Montreal and has worked as a professional artist and
musician since 1987. MacLeod received his D.E.C. in Fine Arts at John Abbott
College and his BFA with a specialization in printmaking from Concordia
University. He has won awards to attend The Banff Centre for the Arts, The
Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico on two occasions, also
Le
Symposium de la Nouvelle Peinture at Baie Saint Paul, La Socieda Mexicana de
Artes Plasticas in Mexico City to study muralism, The Uffizi Print and Drawing
room in Florence to study master drawings and the Atelier Realization Graphic
de Quebec. His experiences in these cultures gave him the opportunity to
witness great works of art and refine his own artistic
and
lyrical skills.
In
his music he write songs in both English and French that describe the history
of Canada, by illuminating men, women and events in our collective
multicultural heritage. He has performed this project, titled, A Brief
Canadian History in schools, theatres, community and cultural centers across
Canada.
He
actively promotes culture, education and activism, and has been involved in
projects involving fund-raising for the homeless, food banks, AIDS hospices,
Amnesty International, orphanages, the developing world and Dr. Jane Goodall.
His
current artwork on the Viking period was funded by The Canadian Scandinavian
Foundation and exhibited in Chicago at The Swedish American Museum and in
Seattle at the Nordic Heritage Museum. His earlier projects have dealt with
the Irish Famine of 1847, the decimation of the plains buffalo and landscapes
of the American Southwest and Eastern Townships.
His
work are in the collections of The National Gallery in Ottawa, Museo de la
Estampe in Mexico City, The Museé de Quebec, Claridge, Guinness Brewery, Air
Canada, Pratt and Whitney, Reader’s Digest, Royal Bank of Canada, London
Life, Lotto Quebec and CP Hotels.
“After
traveling and exhibiting in Europe, North American and Latin America, I sensed
feelings, sounds and images I wanted to portray both on the canvas and in
song... I felt that time was full of meaningful experiences and therefore an
invitation to art and music. I believe it is my responsibility as an artist
and human being to use art as a vehicle for change and
education.”
Sharon Ramsay [top]
BIO
Born
Edinburgh, Scotland 1970
EDUCATION:
Received BFA (Honours) 1993
Edinburgh
College of Art, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
My
fascination with large ciites began in 1989 when my family immigrated to
Canada. I had grown up in Loanhead, a small coal mining village in Midlothian,
Scotland, surrounded by little other than hills, valleys and farmland. In 1988
I was accepted to study fine arts at Edinburgh College of
Art
and left Loanhead to move to Edinburgh, which at the time seemed a huge city;
so I was ill prepared for the skyscrapers that greeted me in North America the
following year. I visited my family during school vacations over the next four
years, eventually joining them in 1993 after gratuating. On each return to
Edinburgh I would dream of the huge cities I had visited in
both
Canada and the United States; becoming fixated on the never ending streets,
bumper to bumper traffic and hoards of people that were so far removed from my
life in Scotland.
Initially
I found the cities both claustrophobic and overwhelming, yet I could never get
enough of them. For years I worked in bars and nightclubs, often leaving work
as the sun was coming up, and it was during these hours that I came to love
living in the city. Walking home I would notice all the things I missed during
the hustle and bustle of the day. Instead of looking down as I shuffled
through crowds of people, I could see clearly down the empty streets, the
details in every store front, the reflections off the windows in the tall
buildings, the dew on the road: what seemed ugly,
crowded,
claustrophobic, loud became beautiful, peaceful, calm, still; even the odd car
seemed to move in slow motion. I would walk home almost in a trance, as if
walking through a dream.
I
continue to go for walks downtown during the early hours of the morning here
in Montreal. Each city I visit I rush around all day finding my favourite
spots, where I return to do quick sketches and take photographs before and
during sunrise. Even after all these years it never fails to amaze me how
peaceful it is in comparison; even time appears to slow down.
When
I paint, I attempt to capture a moment in time rather than simply depict a
scene, to create a sense of peace where it would not normally belong, to show
that just as in nature the city centre can be and is beautiful.
[top]
[top]
The Tavern on the Square is pleased to present
work from award winning
international artist G. Scott MacLeod
Work can be seen at: Tavern on The Square
1 Westmount Square, Montreal, Quebec
Tel:
514,989.9779. August through September.
MacLeod's
is exhibiting a selection of works from his 'Cookbook series', part of the
proceeds from this work go to the Honduran Medical Relief Project, for more
info go to the current events section of www.larazagroup.com . This work was
recently show with MacLeod's old art collective La Raza Group, at the Jens
Thielsen Gallery in London, Ontario and over $8000.00 dollars was raised to
provide medical relief for a village
in the Honduras. The 'Cookbook Series' were
originally works created for Montreal chef David McMillan's cookbook.
McMillan is the celebrated chef at The Globe, 3455 St-Laurent
www.restaurantglobe.com and his
most recent venture, Rosalie at 1232 De La Montagne www.rosalierestaurant.com
.
MacLeod's
'Taos Memory Series' was created during his residency at The Helene Wurlitzer
Foundation of New Mexico in 2001. In his Memory Series he celebrates the Taos
landscape and light. Art critic
John K. Grande explains: When in
New Mexico, MacLeod initially adopted a traditional European and Canadian
painting style, but he was not entirely satisfied with the results. A chance
meeting with Townsend Ludington, biographer of the American painter Marsden
Hartley, brought about some changes in MacLeod's approach to painting the
desert landscape of the American Southwest. Townsend Ludington familiarized
MacLeod with Hartley's memory series of paintings of the American desert. As a
result he developed a more acute eye for the qualities of blue and purple
light he discovered in painting the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and desert mesa
floor. What MacLeod calls the twenty minute window where the Sangre de Cristo
mountain range become a dark band on the horizon, when the light of the
horizon is further accentuated, it became more readily understandable as an
evocation of the spirit of the
Taos
landscape after seeing several of Hartley's 'Memory Series' of pastel desert
drawings firsthand in Santa Fe.
At
38 Scott MacLeod has over 65 exhibitions to his name and is a well know
Montreal based painter whose work has reflected social political and
historical themes. A former member of the art collective La Raza Group, he has
traveled and exhibited in Mexico City, Cologne, Dublin, Kilkenny, Prague,
Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. His work
has been collected by, Guinness, Air Canada, The Royal Bank of Canada, Pratt
and Whitney, Readers Digests, National Gallery of Canada, Claridge, Velan
Valves Inc., McAuslan Brewery, London Life, CP Hotels, Musee de Québec,.
Lotto Québec and Rick Mercer of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
For further information contact:
Scott
MacLeod at 487.0435 or go to his website at www.macleod9.com
The
Exhibition Ancestral Homes: Reflections on Norse-Scottish Heritage,
works by award winning international artist G. Scott MacLeod opens at the
Nordic Heritage Museum on March 5, 2003
MacLeod's
"The Ancestral Homes Series" was inspired by his Scottish and Norse
Viking heritage and will be featured at the Nordic Heritage Museum from March
5 through May 25, 2003..
In
1999 the artist was the recipient of the William Blair Bruce European Travel
Scholarship. This enabled him to travel to Scandinavia, including the island
of Gotland, to research his ancestral origins. Through his research he
discovered and interpreted archaeological evidence and sites to illustrate the
voyage of the Vikings and their influence throughout Europe, the Middle East
and the outer Hebrides of Scotland where his family hails from. Using
a variety of archaeological and historical sources and adapting these into a
variety of visual and painterly expressions, Scott MacLeod explores themes of
his Viking and Scottish heritage and ancestry. Artifacts and ancient
technology were painted representationally in the early documentary works
produced for this series, and then evolved into semi-abstract compositions.
By
transforming this into a contemporary expression of identity, he has brought
some new life and a variety of novel visual expressions and configurations of
this search for identity into being.
Scott
MacLeod has over 50 exhibitions to his name and is a well known Montreal-based
painter whose work has reflected social political and historical themes. A
former member of the art collective, La Raza Group, he has traveled and
exhibited in Mexico City, Cologne, Dublin, Prague, Detroit, Chicago, Montreal,
Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. His work has been collected by Guinness, Air
Canada, The Royal Bank of Canada, Pratt and Whitney, Readers Digests, National
Gallery of Canada, Claridge, Velan Valves Inc., McAuslan Brewery, London Life,
CP Hotels and Musee de Québec
For further information contact Nordic Heritage Museum 789-5707.
Marianne Forssblad
Director
Nordic
Heritage Museum
3014
NW 67th Street
www.nordicmuseum.com
Seattle,
WA 98117
USA
Two Views of New York
Monica Tatjana Gotz & G. Scott MacLeod
Using the simple device of the pinhole camera to record scenes of New York City, Monica Tatjana Gotz captures atmospheres that are quite unlike the
hurried pace of daily life in New York. We see quiet oases of tranquility,
oblique and sometimes obscure views of the city, and tonal qualities that give the viewer a sense of time. The many layers of the city and its
history, both natural and manmade, are exposed but with a voyeuristic eye.
The surrounds become vague, uncertain. The central focus of each photo usually involves man-made structures; the Queensboro Bridge, the Bandshell
or the Winterdale Arch or a Gothic-style bridge in Central Park.
What surrounds them is usually nature as seen in a city whether it be sky, water, garden or park. The main sense that emerges from viewing Gotz’s
photography as a collectivity is that we are witness to brief glimpses of a private world in a city that is anything but private. New York City thus
carries with it a narrative history that is simultaneously about the past, and present, even inadvertently a future. Monica Tatjana Gotz’s soulful
pinhole photo images are intentionally distressed and varnished to achieve a further sense of what the 19th century art and architecture critic John
Ruskin called the “weare of tyme”. She captures this sense of the mystery of
the ordinary place and space with an elegant sense of bygone days.
Ironically, the starting point for Scott MacLeod’s paintings is precisely the contrary to that of Monica Tatjana Gotz’s. MacLeod’s paintings are not
derived from the observation of reality at all. Instead, they draw directly
from the atmosphere and subject matter of Gotz’s pinhole photos. MacLeod’s
paintings are resplendent with a sense of the captured moment. Each subject is brought to life with a delight in the build up of atmosphere on the paint
surface. From Gothic arches, to bridge structures, to the tranquility of a Central Park pond, all MacLeod’s paintings are based on Gotz’s photographs.
We would never have known this without having been informed of it. Using a thick impasto, loose brushwork and strong coloristic sense, MacLeod has
produced a remarkable series of lively oil on masonite sketches for this show. His ability to transcend the ordinary, and refabricate a sense of the
mystery and beauty of a place is remarkable.
- John K. Grande