Press Release: The Consistency of a Sunset

April 28 – June 6, 2021

Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is proud to present The Consistency of a Sunset, an exhibition featuring Toronto based painter Erin Loree and Charlotte based fibers artist Katrina Sánchez. As many of " us return to the world of seeing artwork in person, these two artists fill our senses with color, exaggerated marks and materiality, showing us their process as part of the finished artwork and communicating the emotion packed pieces. The interaction of painting and fiber art push the viewer to engage, considering the process itself, and allowing them to experience the history behind the creation of the work.

Erin Loree’s paintings explore the power of uncertainty in process, noting that each work is a journey of discovery. The artwork itself becomes a visual result of this exploration, with Loree “in the delicate balance between intention and chance, transformation and inversion, and how the unanticipated often reveals itself in unlikely places.” The environmental motifs in her work nod to this idea of reliability in a shifting atmosphere, serving as a constant force to look to when its surroundings are ever evolving.

In her body of magnified weavings, Katrina Sánchez highlights not the environment itself, but the way we as viewers engage with it. As Sánchez writes, “The ideas of community, healing, and renewal are in alignment with the processes of my work, taking many parts that come together to make a whole.” The tactility of the work invites the viewer to play, evoking feelings of familiarity and comfort through this multisensory engagement.

Loree’s work “The Consistency of a Sunset,” is the namesake of the show, and seems to point to a sense of resounding resiliency. Color peeks through a layer of clouded, dark paint that swirls through the sky and landscape elements of the composition. Though the piece is framed by this darkness, the focal point is the yellows, oranges and magentas radiating from a bright center. Many of Loree’s colors seem to push against the confines of their borders, expressing a shameless freedom in their prevailing nature. Sánchez’s piece “Sunbeam,” points to a similar representation of prevailing strength, and many of her works break through their prescriptive confines of shape and size. Together, these sunsoaked collections reflect each other's brightness, creating an energy of joy and light that we have all been craving this past year.

Erin Loree completed her BFA at OCAD University in 2012 and received a Certificate of Advanced Visual Studies from OCAD’s Florence Program. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including Toronto, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, and the UK, with a recent museum solo exhibition at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound, Ontario. She has work in a number of collections including Toronto Dominion Bank, Holt Renfrew, and Imago Mundi. Loree was awarded the Robert Pope Artist Residency at NSCAD University in Halifax, and has participated in residencies at Artscape Youngplace in Toronto, and Sachaqa Centro de Arte in cthe Peruvian Amazon Jungle. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including the 2012 Drawing and Painting Medal, and Nora E. Vaughan Award from OCAD University, as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant. Loree’s work has been featured in YNGSPC.ca, MOMUS.ca, CBC Arts, the Toronto Star, Beautiful Decay, Booooooom, and Huffington Post. She is represented by Peter Robertson Gallery in Edmonton, Canada.

Katrina Sánchez is an interdisciplinary Panamanian-American artist. Through fibers and mixed materials she makes vibrant and tactile objects and installations that examine the social and environmental networks in which we function. Kat pairs traditional processes like weaving and knitting, experimenting with texture, color, and scale to explore contemporary issues. The intersection in which we relate to ourselves, each other, and our environments is at the center of what inspires her work. She explores ideas of community, healing, and renewal through physical actions and methods like mending, street art, and interactive installations. Influenced by both the history of fibers and its intrinsic connection to humanity Kat likes creating work that invites the public to interact with it. A desire to elicit a multi-sensory experience while engaging the audience's desire to investigate and play is at the heart of her practice.