JESSICA BRADLEY ART + PROJECTS
Fantasia: Daniel Barrow, Shary Boyle, Cooper
Battersby and Emily Vey Duke
Opening Saturday April 1, 2-5 pm (until April
29)
1450 Dundas Street West (at Gladstone)Toronto M6J
1Y6 416-537-3125
www.jessicabradleyartprojects.com
Noon to 5 pm Wednesday through Saturday and by appointment

Featuring drawings, prints, sculptures and video by Daniel Barrow, Shary Boyle and the collaborative video artists Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke, Fantasia invites the viewer into the personal yet familiar worlds these artists explore. In their work the conflicted, sometimes humourous and often unsettling undercurrents of the inner life are seen in a collision course with the constraints of the social world. The enchanting directness of outsider art and the incisive commentary found in underground comics come to mind. Fantasy and desire infuse the narratives at play in this exhibition with both terror and delight.

Winnipeg-based artist Daniel Barrow is best known for performances in which he narrates his intricate drawings while manipulating them on an overhead projector to create animated sequences. Barrow has accompanied musical performances by The Hidden Cameras with his live projections and last year created a solo event for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. He will show a suite of new drawings and collages entitled "Every time I see your picture I cry."

Toronto's Shary Boyle works in several media using imagery that, like Barrow's, recalls the anxieties, longing and bittersweet fantasy worlds of childhood and adolescence where innocence and disturbance meet. Sculptures, drawings and new etchings by Boyle will be on view. A solo exhibition featuring her porcelain figure sculptures is also on view at the Power Plant through May 28, 2006.

Currently living in Syracuse, NY, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby perform various roles in their critically acclaimed videos described by Cinema Scope writer Jason MacBride as "some of the most witty, charming and yes, sexy, video art this side of Spike Jonze."