"Bitter Ends" by Katie Bond Pretti - FRESH PICKS V1E14

“Loves me, loves me not, loves me, love me not, loves me, loves me not, loves me...”

Katie Bond Pretti illuminates intimacy in "Bitter Ends", a gently gestural abstract painting featured as Fresh Picks Vol.1 Edition 14.

Pretti says, "I'm not one to plan things out, exactly - I don't even keep a sketchbook. There is for me, however, a difference between making those broad strokes on a large canvas and holding a delicate sheet of paper on your lap to work on. Both of these have their value in my practice. Bitter Ends is a series in the smaller, intimate vein. In terms of treatment of negative versus positive space and colour harmony, it has influenced several larger pieces on paper as well as a canvas series which I plan to include in an upcoming show. This one piece is my favorite. I hope you like it.”

Freely scribbled calligraphic mark-making on solid fields of mostly neutral colours blur the line between drawing and painting combining “bare astringency and sensual indulgence”. This could easily describe Pretti’s work but rather, is an explanation of the work of American Abstract artist Cy Twombly both on Wikpedia and in a Retrospective tome by Kirk Varnedoe. There is also an uncanny synchronicity with Twombly’s favourite French poet, Mallarmé who directly inspired musical creations by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Toronto based musician Jeremy Strachan, a key figure in indie rock and improvised music in Canada, created a woodwind solo in response to Pretti’s installation, The Heart of the Matter in 2007.

Katie Bond Pretti is a 2004 honours graduate of OCAD. Her work has been featured in Elle Canada, Fashion Magazine and Canadian House and Home. Her book - Sonority of Words - is in the collection of The National Gallery of Canada and she is in the 2008 Carte Blanche Vol. 2: Painting, The Magenta Foundation. She is represented by the LE Gallery in Toronto. For information on original works please see www.le-gallery.ca, www.femmart.com and www.katiebondpretti.com.

Vantage Private Collections - The Byron Aceman Collection

Vantage Art Projects is proud to announce the launch of the private luxury publication chronicling the private art collection of Mr. Aceman.

We recognize that a private collection is both a passion and a labour of love for the collector. We further believe that a collection of artwork is also a collection of stories; the stories about the individual artworks, the stories about the artists and the story about the collector. For this reason, author Lee Henderson was commissioned to write an interpretive essay about Mr. Aceman and his collection. Mr. Henderson's first novel, The Man Game, was recently launched with Penguin Books.

"Private Collections" is an exclusive suite of services for private, corporate and institutional art collector/collections. These services include: collection archiving, documentation, valuation for insurance purposes, restoration and cataloging. Additionally, Vantage Art Projects can also provide selection and implementation of collection management software, collection installation and storage solutions.

As the nature of each collection varies, so does the price for each project. Please contact Sherri for further details at sherri@vantageartprojects.com.

More information on Lee Henderson

More information on Vantage Art Projects PRIVATE COLLECTIONS service.

"Have Your Cake And Eat It Too" by Leah Rosenberg - FRESH PICKS V1E13

Have your cake and eat it too, says San Francisco-based artist Leah Rosenberg. Not prone to wordy explanations, she often bakes cake in lieu of writing an artist statement. Leah's work is part performance, part painting and part sculpture. Occasionally she enlists groups of people to make the elements of her art through "punching" parties.

"A cake to me is a work of art with the intention of generosity. It is beautiful, it is structural, it is an evocative work of color and balance. And then people eat it. They consume it. They find it too sweet or too sticky or too vanilla-y. And then they move on. This is the generosity of art. Create with intention and then, set it free."

Short, sweet and succinct. This month's FRESH PICK wants to you have it all...

Leah Rosenberg is a Canadian artist living and working in the US. She completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in 2008 at the California College of Art in San Francisco. For more information about Leah's artistic confectionery: www.leahrosenberg.org

CLICK HERE TO BUY "HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO" STARTING AT $45+