11:11

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Sebastian Butt, Janis Demkiw, Olia Mishchenko, Sandy Plotnikoff and Christine Swintak are Toronto-based artists from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Their approaches to making art vary widely, yet they are united by their interest in creative exchange, collaboration and working from a place of community. These artists have worked together in different combinations in the past, and 11:11 is a dynamic expression of their joint productive forces and impulses.

By interpreting a manufacturing plant in various mediums, 11:11 invites you to engage with the translations that occur between the drawings, sculptures, installations and prints that the various artists contribute. 11:11 is a palindrome, a sequence of digits that is the same in both directions, whether read forwards or backwards. It is also a number that numerologists believe has other worldly connotations. They claim that random events occur at this time more often than chance would dictate. With this simple yet obscure title, the artists seem to be taking opposing positions – invoking balance and symmetry on the on hand, and the unstable or uncanny on the other. 11:11 operates in both of these realms, as its configuration proposes a correlation between its two- and three-dimensional elements. But its ultimate effect is an inefficient yet multi-logical asymmetry.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

A multidisciplinary artist but primarily a sculptor, Butt is interested in building things with operating components and visible processes. Demkiw uses found objects and materials to stage spatial disruptions, absurd shifts in scale, and strategic approaches to display. Mishchenko is best known for drawings that explore intuitive ways of constructing and building the world. Plotnikoff produces diverse multiples. Swintak’s interdisciplinary projects incorporate installation, intervention and performance, and often involve other people and repurposed structures.