Surface Dwellers
October 23, 2008
Bonfanti’s four years spent in the industry directly influenced his art practice. Working under the scrutiny of both a boss and a designer, he soon learned to pay closer attention to detail. He also learned how to better match colours having to deal with a bunch mistinted paints and a client waving a colour swatch to be matched.
Ultimately, it was the pressures of trying to please the boss and the designer, and the monotony of sponging a wall for weeks on end that wore him out. By the time he got home the last thing he wanted to see was another paint brush. So, he left the faux finishing to pursue his own artistic practice.
But Bonfanti didn’t ask his participants to choose work that visually acknowledged their experience as a faux finisher. The exhibition is more meant to be an experiment to see if the influences of the industry can be seen in their work.
“They’re all talented artists, so we’ll see what happens. I’m curious to see if the art has more of social statement or if it’s just purely more decorative. It will just be an interesting bag of work.”
Surface Dwellers will be on display from Thu October 23 – Sun November 2 at Toronto’s AWOL Gallery with works from Maciek Balmas, Charlotte Blake, Ryan Fedorczenko, Yuriko Kubota, Jennifer Lush, Domenic Monteleone, Rod Mireau, Mike Thompson and Ehrling White.
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