The Editorial Magazine

Shannon Cartier Lucy’s paintings seem to happen in slow motion. A tulip balancing on a finger, a potted geranium poised on a foot—moments that suggest action to come, accident, or tragedy. What Lucy paints is measured, junctures are captured with intention and detail. There is no freedom of brushstroke in these frames. This format lends a cinematic quality: there is a director behind the scenes, a sense of foreshadow and narrative. Looking at Lucy’s work, I thought of Chantal Akerman’s arthouse classic Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a film chronicling a mother/sex worker’s regimented schedule of cooking and cleaning, until subtle slip-ups lead to the character’s violent psychological break.

We’re excited to premiere The Creatrix’s track off the inaugural compilation from Orbit’s Spell, a new techno label based in Oakland. With Orbit’s Spell Volume One, the label brings together a fresh and diverse crop of techno producers for eager listeners on dance floors and underground…

Today we’re taking a behind-the-scenes look at Austra’s latest video shoot for her track “Anywayz.” Filmed over the course of a weekend, the singer-songwriter behind Austra, Katie Stelmanis, and director Jasmin Mozzafari, along with a full crew, transformed a dilapidated suburban home into a sci-fi fantasy film-set.

If smoke from a large fire on Earth contains particles of just the right size, these particles, when released into the atmosphere, can advantageously scatter red light—giving the illusion of a blue moon. “Blue moon” is also a term used to refer to the phenomenon of an extra full moon in an annual cycle, in both occasions a term harnessed to refer to a rare occurrence.

Mother’s Magazines is Danielle Orchard’s second solo show with New York’s Jack Hanley Gallery. Orchard’s large-scale canvases, some eight-feet wide, reveal a confident painter who’s recently made the switch from small detail brushes to large brushes (the symbol of courage in the studio.) There’s something inherently late-90s about Orchard’s style, as though I could imagine Charlotte, Samantha, and Carrie attending her opening in Sex and the City. Orchard’s playfulness with art history, Cubism and Picasso-like compositions, paired with her re-appropriation of the female form, are nostalgic of an art and fashion world where self-reflectivity was once novel.

If gleaning involves ascertaining, or, more literally, collecting information or materials, gleaning ozone, an unstable gas, seems hella scary. Ironic, then, that Tiziana La Melia and geetha thurairajah’s show “Ozone Gleaners,” at Montreal’s Projet Pangée, produces an atmosphere of pastel repose. In the press release, an excerpt from La Melia’s OAKWALKDRONE poem refers to “gamma rays on everyone’s marigolds,” and indeed a slippery proximity between twee habitats (two paintings are even shaped like gable-roofed houses) and sinister, electromagnetic undertones permeates the show.

Gunderson harnesses ciphers from the collective visual vernacular to exemplify the potential and limits of identity and transformation of self, as dictated by the overbearing weight of preconceived socio-political frameworks. A self-portrait (and perhaps the catalyst for connecting the exhibition’s disparate heroes) It’s Hard to See from Where I Am Standing exists as a visual echoing of repeated selves, each figure’s vision obscured by another’s, though each ultimately bearing the same identity.

Patterns & Rituals marks Tunji Adeniyi-Jones’ second solo exhibition at Nicelle Beauchene for the young British-Nigerian artist. Adeniyi-Jones’ work feels at once fluid and solid. Liquid-like figures move through a tornado of pink and purple foliage, yet the work is flat, authoritative. In a way Adeniyi-Jones’ work feels like music – pulsing, repeating, transporting us to another realm. The scale and uniformity of the paintings causes reverberations throughout the space. Visions of stain-glass come to mind, in this artist’s place of worship.

Frequent Editorial Magazine contributor Maya Fuhr debuts her latest solo show Tec Style at new Toronto gallery 10 Years Ago. Pivoting from fashion photographer and brand ambassador for the likes of Chanel, Fuhr unpacks her career, and perceived culpability through sculptures, light-boxes and a pair of 3D-rendered boots. Tec Style is a meditation on the life of a garment; Fuhr walks us through the manufacturing process behind the clothes we wear. While the idea of environmental or resistance art can seem futile, sanctimonious, Tec Style comes across as a sincere effort. Fuhr worships her wardrobe, ritualizing the washing and caring for each item. Her simple “Washing” photographs are the stand-out works in the show, intimate, familiar, and mediative. 

Mike Kuchar’s work is a joyful blast of colour, sex and humour, in an art world that needs it. The first time I saw his drawings was after a long, jading day of Material Art Fair; they were a welcomed surprise – crass, playful, and funny. Mike says his aim is to put “a bit more fun to viewing pictures.” His latest exhibition Broken Gods, currently on view at Ghebaly Gallery, is invigorating, no holds barred. Mike and his twin brother George made their name as iconic figures of the burgeoning underground film community in 1960s New York. The twins’ over-the-top, Romance-sci-fi movies were shot on 8mm film with little to no budget. John Waters sources the Kuchar Brothers as a source of inspiration, calling them “complete crackpots without an ounce of pretension.”

Level 1: A free falling blue flame descends from a smoggy sky filled with pink flamingos. Landing in a sudden burst, I emerge in the form of Chun-Li, to begin a long, poetic journey. Chun-Li, of Street Fighter II fame, was the first female fighter in video game history. An expert martial artist with thighs of steel, Chun-Li was born in the 90s, first in pants, later in a cropped qipao and white combat boots. Despite Nintendo’s eventual censorship of her up-skirt moments, Chun-Li was named “Hottest Babe of 1992” by Electronic Gaming Monthly.