This exhibition presents recent paintings by Toronto-based artist, Monica Tap. Her large-scale, intricately constructed artworks operate both as a radiant survey of painterly marks from art history and an urgent call to preserve our natural heritage.
Using cuttings from decommissioned auction catalogues to recreate her original source images of sites near Pickerel River, Tap creates collages that serve as models for her larger finished paintings. Tap’s collage-making intervenes in the circulation and commodification of landscape imagery and produces fragmented representations of her subjects. Tap’s paintings resonate with deep admiration for the land while acknowledging the industrialization of Canada’s natural spaces since colonialization, as she seeks to reconcile the role art has played in shaping that history.
Monica Tap is based in Toronto. As an artist and Professor Emerita (University of Guelph) Tap has influenced a new generation of painters, while honouring and studying the work of previous generations. Her work investigates the relationships between painting and technology, art history and contemporary thought, and representations of time and place.
As a part of National Youth Week, this annual exhibition of art by local children celebrates the creativity, energy, and ideas of students from Whitchurch-Stouffville elementary schools as well as Stouffville District Secondary School.
