Into The Woods

Jane Buyers & Mary Catherine Newcomb

September 10 to January 7, 2007

Keith & Winifred Shantz Gallery

the Woods features work by Jane Buyers and Mary Catherine Newcomb which explores the dark side of desire, imagination and psychology. The woods represent a place where societal rules and conventions give way to darker passions and emotions, symbolically represented by Newcomb’s animal and human forms, paired with Buyer’s flora and fauna.

Jane Buyers is an artist and a Professor in the Fine Arts Department at the University ofWaterloo. She works with sculpture in a variety of materials including wood, bronze and terracotta, and in a variety of sizes including public outdoor works. Her practice also includes drawing and printmaking. Jane is represented by Paul Petro Gallery in Toronto where she regularly exhibits in solo and group shows. In addition she frequently has solo exhibitions in public galleries, which have included the McIntosh Gallery, University of Western Ontario; the Burlington Cultural Centre; Hart House, University of Toronto; Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Rome. Recent groups shows include The Single Tree, Museum London; Cote cour, cote jardin, Galerie Art Mur, Montreal; Great Lakes, Harbourfront, Toronto; Herbarium, Art Gallery of Peterborough; Reading without Words; Books as Objects, Gallery Stratford. Buyers has created a number of outdoor

public sculptures including Golden Queen Hybrid, RIM Park, Waterloo; John Labatt Barley Field, Waterloo; Between the Acts, King Street Theatre, Kitchener and Agricultural for the Donald Forster Sculpture Park, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph. Jane was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2002. She has been awarded numerous Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council grants. Her work is in many private and public collections including Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Maclaren Art Centre, Barrie; Ernst & Young Collection; Canada Council Art Bank; National Capital Commission, Governor-General’s Residence, Ottawa; National Bank of Detroit; McDonald’s Corporation, Chicago and TorontoDominion Bank.

Mary Catherine Newcomb is a Kitchener-based artist whose work looks at relationships which exist between perception and personal fictions. These fictions, which determine how an individual interacts with the world, are constantly in flux. They change and adapt with experience of both the real and the represented and are often influenced by deception. Ultimately, she tries to reconcile the tension caused by the dichotomy of her objects and images. Her work has been widely exhibited in Canada. She uses images of animals and the body to look at the relative privileging of text and intuition in determining how we see the world. She was a member of the Nethermind Collective and a founding member of the Waterloo Regional Arts Council.

Arbor Fabula II  - Jane Buyers (2006) 
Porcelain and antique glassbeads
19” x 24” x 3 ¼”

Arbor Fabula I - Jane Buyers 2006
Porcelain and antique glassbeads
20” x 18” x 4”

Canopic Jars - Mary Catherine Newcombe (2006)
clay, plaster, interior lights, wooden plinths
59.5 x 11 x 11"

Product of Eden (2006)

in the background above:
Pickled Vegetables, gold crowns, etc

below:
Living Vegetables, gold crowns, etc

Random Thoughts - Mary Catherine Newcombe  (2006)
Terracotta, hair, wooden platform
Platform:  8’ x 4’ x 2’     Each horse:   23 ½” x 16” x 6”