Art Space*

378 Aylmer St. N.

Blue Tomato*

140 Hunter St. W. 2nd floor entrance

Christensen Fine Art*

432 George St. N.

Statement: What is a "photograph"? Sometimes I like to use the camera and printer as simply the tools to transfer images in my head to the finished product. I like the outcomes, and I like to test "ways of seeing" and conventional expectations of "photography."

Students have examined issues of conformity through this body of work. Using themselves as a contextual starting point, they have responded to the various challenges that come with "Breaking the Mould."

The title of the show is "Ceramic Interpretation." The theme recognizes diversity as the works portray cultural and social diversity in the way we live and the objects that we keep. The work consists of three installations: good neighbours, live downtown, and ceramic studies.

bethmccubbin.com

In these three drawings I explore the world of transgenics as practiced by Nexia, a biotech firm that has created "biosteel," a trademarked and patented product that derives recombinant spider silk from goats' milk. The trio is part of a larger body of work called "Corpo" in which I address the environmental and social devastation of global corporate domination.

My artistic practice addresses the political, the personal and the purely visual through drawing, painting, sculpture, photography and installation. Conceptually my work travels though representation, illustration, process, obsessive construction, colour and form.

www.artist-marykainer.ca

Photographer and art educator Miriam Davidson has recorded the fairs for more then 25 years. At "fair time" individuals and communities are renewed, farm work is recognized and ritualized, and the talents of many individuals are celebrated. Through her photographs Davidson strives to capture the great investment of time and creative energy that many individuals make to the fairs, while considering how these dynamic examples of grassroots cultural performance act as agents of preservation and change.

In "The Ice Cream Truck Story Project: Digital Storytelling in the Community," Miriam Davidson and Rani Sanderson share the process and results of facilitating digital storytelling in a variety of contexts. In particular they screen a series of digital stories created on site at the 171st Norfolk County Fair in Simcoe, Ont., by individuals ranging in age from 11 to 80 years. Davidson and Sanderson will discuss their goals as well as the process and challenges of mobile digital storytelling projects.

A selection of these digital stories will also be screened in the reading room at the AGP in conjunction with ReFrame International Film Festival.

NOTE: A talk and screening Saturday will take place, Jan. 28, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Art Gallery of Peterborough.

Exploring the politics of recent histories of racism, feminist activism, animal drag, and the poetics of personal journeys, selected works by Rebecca Belmore (Vancouver), Emilie Chhangur, Johanna Householder, Pamila Matharu (Toronto), Nadia Myre, (Montreal) Natalie Wood, and Christina Zeidler (Toronto) will be shown in juxtaposition – to put into play philosophical terms like "alterity," meaning "otherness," and "critical pedagogy," signifying a balance between theory and practice – in a program of performance, video and installation. This group show will be accompanied by a publication with essays by Pamela Edmonds and Carla Garnet.

www.agp.on.ca/future.php

Organized by Wedge Projects and Gallery 44 (Toronto), "Always Moving Forward" is a survey of lens-based work produced by contemporary African-born photographers: Mohamed Bourouissa, Mohamed Camara, Calvin Dondo, Samuel Fosso, Hassan Hajjaj, Bouchra Khalili, Antony Kaminju, Lebohang Mashiloane, Aida Muluneh, Dawut L. Petos, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Guy Tillim, Andres Tshabangu, and Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko.

These new voices are a response to emerging technologies, transitioning landscapes, rampant globalization and forces of capitalism including the influence of advertising and new media. The group show is accompanied by the "Always Moving Forward" exhibition catalogue with image reproductions and essays by Sally Frater and Pamela Edmonds.

www.agp.on.ca/future.php#2exhibit

The theme in Wallace's current series of paintings is related to duplicity - that that is, the artist's interpretation, in metaphoric studies, allegorically representing the illusions presented to us all in our every day lives.

Victoria Wallace is a multimedia artist working, exhibiting and conducting workshops in acrylic, encaustic, watercolour and sculptural media. She has had a successful mural and specialty paint finish company in Toronto for over 25 years. Her extensive commissions include work for television, film, theatre, restaurants, businesses and private collections across Canada and internationally. Her paintings are infused with the "trompe l'oeil" influence she mastered through years of mural painting. Victoria's work illuminates her subjects through a range of techniques that combine high realism to abstraction.

www.victoria-wallace.com

"War is Over" - a digital photo essay by Robert Hood.

"The iconic ongoing peace project "War is Over If You Want It" by Yoko Ono has always resonated with me, and I decided to explore and promote the resurgence of peace and the rejection of war in my own photography. I have taken the mantra "War is Over If You Want It" and applied it with digital tools to a diversity of strange and wondrous images captured in my travels. However incongruous, my intention is to reach your heart and mind with this message of PEACE."

Robert Hood is a Kawartha-based photo-artist and long-haul truck driver who frames both beauty and paradox with his camera lens.

rhphotoartist@hotmail.com

Brian's work comes out of spending time in a hospital in rural Zimbabwe each year. In it he explores what it means to be present with people as they suffer.