Katie Lyle
The End of Vandalism
October 16–November 28, 2015
Opening: Friday, October 16th 6–9pm
Katie Lyle makes paintings and drawings that explore portraiture’s associations with fiction, recognition, myth making, and mimicry. Lyle’s recent body of work specifically examines the connections between author and character, and the process of making as a development of both roles. Each portrait is a plastic investigation of the back and forth process of decision-making as it relates to these roles. Why does one artwork survive and another get painted over? What makes something worth saving or protecting? Through layering and repainting, the images reveal more than one narrative; the processes of applying and removing paint reveal the ambivalence often present in the desire to look and to be looked at. As a body of work, the fictional characters in these paintings – and the paintings themselves – hover between familiarity and fiction, caricature and likeness, emphasizing the conflation of these roles and the spaces in between.
Katie Lyle is a visual artist based in Toronto. Recent group exhibitions include Aligned with the curve of night, Model Project Space, Vancouver; What she is not, what she is, what she can be, Garden Gallery, Toronto and Spirit Gum, The Nanaimo Art Gallery (all 2015). Solo projects include Gene Pool, Erin Stump Projects (2014), and The Green Years, Deluge Contemporary, Victoria (2013). Current and upcoming projects include: Guys and Boots, HPI Projects, Toronto (till the end of October), and a publication project with SLOW EDITIONS (2016).
The artist wishes to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.
