With a final few brushstrokes left and the selection of which painting goes where on the gallery walls, Toronto contemporary artist JOHNY DELUNA is just a few days away from launching his exciting new solo show, “Spontaneous Levitation”, at the Art Square Gallery, 334 Dundas St West (opp. the AGO).
I caught up with Johny over the weekend and asked him to share some last-minute thoughts on his new show….
As your solo show, Spontaneous Levitation, draws closer, how many new works of art will be represented at the show? I will be showing about 10 new works from this year and about 15 works from prior years.
From where have you drawn inspiration for these new canvases? The genesis of most paintings starts with one small event or observation My inspirations come from observations of the human condition. I try to depict the fragility of our lives, the unusual effects of random events, the consequences of our behavior. It seems that issues rarely disappear they simply re-emerge in a modified form. I want to articulate these ideas in a new and fresh way, so I let the work express itself intuitively. Sometimes I don’t recognize the finished piece as mine. (No Free Lunch, below).
Can you share the story behind one or two of these new masterworks? The piece titled Eating Spaghetti With Scissors (below) is based on our need to add unnecessary complexity to our lives. Perhaps this complexity gives us comfort, the feeling that our life is richer and better. I think we mistake motion with progress and quantity with quality. When we can’t answer an important question with a straight answer, we fake it with circuitous logic. We vigorously defend this opinion with a mind numbing jumble of half baked ‘truths’, opinions, rumors and petty biases. We end up ‘going to the wall’ defending these opinions; opinions that that we don’t fully understand ourselves.
What would you like gallery visitors to come away with after viewing your work? I hope people will find the show to be very fresh, humorous and thought-provoking. I hope the works will speak to each person in their own way. I hope visitors will encourage their friends to visit the show as well.
Come meet Johny at his opening reception and view his provocative large-format paintings (acrylic on canvas) this Thursday June 8th (6-9pm) at Art Square Gallery, 334 Dundas St West, Toronto. Show runs until June 19th.