Inner/Outer Landscapes

The pandemic created widespread isolation in Toronto. To combat the prevailing disconnection, a group of artists joined together online in an informal open studio. Out of this supportive camaraderie emerged Inner/Outer Landscapes, an exhibition of work that explores the artists’ internal and external environments, their memories, desires, and dreams. It celebrates the flowering of individual creativity during a time of unprecedented constraint.

Kate Bishop looked for beauty and sensation in her immediate environment. Working in ink, watercolour and acrylic she explored the quality of light from her studio window or the juxtaposition of objects on a table. Sandrine Dickel studied public transit riders, using paint and ink to capture intimate moments of vulnerability and fragility. Celia Ferrier considered the ‘bubble’ of family and neighbourhood in the context of the outer conflicts and contingencies of the global pandemic, using additive and reductive techniques with acrylic paints. Jeffrey Pilcher turned his gaze to the urban and natural landscapes seen from his living room, high above the city, and to family photographs taken over three generations. Rachelle Mingail Shubert painted daydreamers and messengers, evoking forgotten legends that are both earthly and divine, past and present, there but not there. Polly Wells explored two visual languages, watercolour and photography, their different freedoms and possibilities.