Soft Abs
Miranda Aschenbrenner, Melanie Authier, Christine Baigent, Milly Ristvedt – 2008
“Soft Abs” is an exhibition of abstract painting, and its title is meant to give a slightly humorous spin on the nature by which abstraction defies definition and evades the hard-bodied hyper-realism of much contemporary and mostly computer-generated imagery.
The works in the show deploy varying strategies that examine the tradition of painting, offering an expansive definition of abstraction to Modern Fuel’s visitors. Aschenbrenner paints on shards of doorskin, hybridizing painting with sculpture; Authier, through abstraction, expresses an idea of landscape or nature that is mediated; Ristvedt suggests the possibility of infinite variation that is literally realized in Baigent’s work, a series of shaped magnets adhering to metallic paint on the gallery’s wall. A visit to “Soft Abs” will loosen your boundaries.
About the Artists
Miranda Aschenbrenner, Melanie Authier, Christine Baigent, Milly Ristvedt
Miranda Aschenbrenner (Westbank, BC) earned her Fine Arts Diploma from Okanagan University College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2006. She has shown at the Arnica Gallery in Kamloops, the Up Front Gallery in Vernon’s Public Art Gallery, and the Laughing Moon Gallery in Kelowna. She was a nominee for the BMO 1st Art! Invitational Student Competition in 2006.
Melanie Authier (Toronto, ON) received a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal in 2002 and completed her MFA at the University of Guelph in 2006. Among numerous scholarships and awards, she recently received the Honourable Mention prize for the 9th Annual RBC Painting Competition 2007. She is represented by the Michael Gibson Gallery.
Christine Baigent (Toronto, ON) makes work that is highly personal and conceptual in nature. She has exhibited her work in Toronto, Cambridge, Halifax, and now Kingston. For many years she has been interested in the idea of producing multiples, in both limited and unlimited editions, to make art more available to a broader audience.
Milly Ristvedt (Tamworth, ON) is an artist with a lengthy exhibition record in Canada and elsewhere. She is also a teacher, community activist, gardener, tai-chi practitioner, former vice-president of Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, and a member (beyond redemption) of the modernist project.