One Dimensional Space
Melanie MacDonald, Leigh Mayoh, June Pak, and Kathleen Ritter and James B. Maxwell – 2008
In One Dimensional Space, Modern Fuel presents the work of four artists, Melanie MacDonald (St. Catharines, ON), Leigh Mayoh (Ymir, BC), June Pak (Toronto, ON), and Kathleen Ritter and James B. Maxwell (Vancouver, BC), offering the promise of other dimensions.
Making reference to Herbert Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, the exhibition tests the thesis that the total administration of the life-world in capitalist society leads to the complacent consumption of a homogeneous culture. From the standpoint of a culture that has been bureaucratized, the works in the exhibition present instances of creative administration: Mayoh’s drawings, created at work, are a form of white-collar sabotage; MacDonald’s paintings of portraits of realtors investigate the hard sell of subjectivity; Pak blurs the boundaries between art and design, intervention and decoration, executing her work in spaces both public and private; and Ritter and Maxwell make music out of board meeting minutes. The artists position their work in a way that disarticulates its incorporation, enabling the generation of divergent responses and alternative points of view.
About the Artists
Melanie MacDonald , Leigh Mayoh, June Pak , and Kathleen Ritter and James B. Maxwell
Melanie MacDonald lives and works in downtown St. Catharines, ON, and she is an active member of the Niagara Artists’ Centre, the region’s only artist-run centre. She is also a member of CRAM, a proactive collective of emerging and established professional artists who have a connection to Niagara or CRAM who advocate for opinions and ideas from outside the metro and international art scenes.
Leigh Mayoh completed a BFA in Visual Art and a BA in Art History at the University of Regina, and studied Wood Product Design at the Kootenay School of Arts. His artistic practice has shifted from the specific view of “painter” to the greater position of “artist.” His future projects include site specific work, and installations. He currently lives in Ymir, BC with his wife and four children.
June Pak is a visual artist who works closely with time-based and digital media. While her work utilizes the technological means, her subject matter deals with the human-ness in the multiple/fragmented existence of the Self. She teaches Time-Based Media and Interdisciplinary Studio courses at the University of Western Ontario in London and Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto.
Kathleen Ritter is an artist and writer. Her artistic practice draws on the traditions of conceptual art, photography, and site-specific performance. Characterized by its furtive qualities, her work critically addresses the conditions of exhibiting and the institutional structures that surround and mediate the reception of art. James B. Maxwell is a composer of concert music, music for contemporary dance, and music for theatre and film. His work has been presented in Canada, the UK, and Europe.