Things We Know

2-02-06, 2006. Mark Bell Watercolour on bristol paper, 9" x 12".	23-03-07, 2007 Mark Bell Watercolour on bristol paper, 9" x 12".	Mounts, 2006 Sara MacKillop matt board 13 x 11 inches
Installation shot of "Jig Saws" Sara MacKillop Yellow/Blue Jig Saws, 2007 Found puzzles 18 x 15.5 x ¼ inches Large Round Jig Saws, 2007 Found puzzles Diameter: 20 inches (51 cm) Small Round Jig Saws, 2007 Found puzzles Diameter: 9 inches (23 cm)	Plastic Rider, 2007 Paul Housley Watercolour on rag paper Signed verso	Blind Owl, 2007 Paul Housley Watercolour on rag paper Signed verso

The gallery is pleased to welcome British artists Sara MacKillop and Paul Housley who join Toronto artist Mark Bell in the gallery's summer exhibition, Things We Know. (June 23 to July 21)

Opening reception, Friday June 22, 6 - 8 PM, in the presence of the artists.

The title of this exhibition identifies the interest these artists share in the banal objects and situations of everyday life: the things we know but also ignore or do not value as worthy of contemplation.

The daily news recorded in Mark Bell's newspaper paintings is continuously replaced by the stories of the next day. Bell's on-going diaristic activity commits fleeting events both large and small, to a series of carefully observed individual watercolour images. Sara MacKillop's found-object works depend on deft compositional shifts that transport familiar objects into imaginative realms. By abstracting ordinary things in new arrangements, MacKillop's subtle aesthetic draws on the traditions of Modernism and the overlooked formal attributes of everyday objects. Recently she has been critically recognized with a new generation of British artists such as Ian Kiaer whose economy of means reconfigures the relationship between sculpture and installation art. Paul Housely's work shares a painter's observation of the everyday with the work of Mark Bell, and a penchant for humble mass-produced objects with the work of Sara Mackillop. As curator Alistair Robinson says, "Housley's paintings play with our notions of taste, finding novelty in cliché and lyricism in mundane, blank objects like sports bags and light bulbs."

Thanks to the Drake Hotel artist residency program for hosting Paul Housley and Sara MacKillop in Toronto, and to the British Council for supporting Paul Housley's participation.

Paul Housley is represented by Wilkinson Gallery, London.

Artists:
Mark Bell
Sara MacKillop
Paul Housley