This Tuesday, I had an opportunity to visit a Charity Art event hosted at Bridgepoint Active Healthcare hospital in Toronto. Titled The Art of Giving Tuesday, this event was organized by Sinai Health Foundation as a unique art-buying experience where local artists presented their artworks and empowered the Bridgepoint’s Sinai Health System and their use of art in the healing process.
Sinai Health Foundation was created to raise funds in support of Bridgepoint’s patient programs, facilities, research, academic pursuits, and etc. For this particular event, six Toronto-based artists were commissioned to do an original artwork and the hospital was selling the limited-edition prints of that works as well as another artist was painting live during the event and her piece was silent auctioned off at the event.
The Art of Giving Tuesday was hosted in a grand four-story rotunda. I was impressed by the architecture of the whole complex and its rich history. Started as a Don Jail in the 1860s, Bridgepoint was readapted into a complex care and rehabilitation hospital. You can still see some building as they were originally designed and built. For more information, you can watch a short ten-minute video about this venue here: https://youtu.be/rDb2xqHwJF0.
I was really impressed by the works presented at The Art of Giving Tuesday. Most of them were illustrations and they were placed in frames that weren’t the same size as the works. You can see that the frames were a bit bigger and there was a gap between the work and the frame (see images below). It was not the worst and not the best way to present art, but this display made them visually bigger. At the same time, you can see the wall and the easel behind the works and it takes away the attention from the main subject.
I was really upset about the lightning at the venue. All presented artworks were in the dark spots. When I was taking images – they turned out dark and I couldn’t use the flash as glass has a reflective surface. If you are an artist and your work will be featured at any event, make sure there is a spotlight available or bring one. You want your art and practice to get noticed.
I also liked the design of the event’s brochure. The front page depicts the title and every word represents a painting exhibited in the show as a word’s background. This idea is similar to OCAD Univerity’s Grad Ex posters. This year one of the artworks exhibited at my MFA art exhibition was depicted in the letter D on the Grad Ex poster.
Here are the artworks presented during this amazing event:
Collage artist Nicole Moss (@nicolemossart) and her work that encompasses successes & hardships happening at Women’s and Infants’ Centre of Excellence. I love the description on Nicole’s Instagram:
“As the rain falls we all reach for those umbrellas to protect us, while some of us get caught in the rain. Little do we forget that this unwelcome weather is needed for flowers to grow, much like the hardships in our lives help us grow. The infant in the center is surrounded by the strongest of support systems to help them flourish, but the challenges they will encounter will truly make them bloom.”
Designer Alexis Eke (@alexis.eke) who, by being inspired by Renaissance portraits and traditional Japanese art, illustrated black woman in a contemporary light. With the theme of cancer, she created an illustration that shows beauty and strength.
Illustrator & Designer Meaghan Way (@meaghanway) who created an illustration that depicts the patient-hospital relationship in emergency medicine: a balancing act of stability and unpredictability.
Paper artist, graphic designer, design instructor Julia Seo (@juliaspaper) who created a detailed structure of paper-cuts to reflect the intricate qualities of an organoid where layers express the mysteries uncovered through the research.
Illustrator LeeAndra Cianci (@leeandracianci) and her work that was inspired by and in support of The Ben and Katz Acute Care for Elders. The sets of hands represent various stages of life and generations while the flowers symbolize hope.
Illustrator Alisha Davidson (@alisha_lucia) who created an image that depicts a dancer’s healing journey: working through and beyond their injury and coming out more empowered than before.
Live Artist Melysa Gorlicky (@liveartist) painting her work during the event where she expressed light, grace, and healing to visually represent the pool at Bridgepoint, used for the rehabilitation of many of its patients. I wish her art was live auctioned as opposed to silent auctioning (as a live auction is a more exciting feature of the event and people tend more to participate in bidding when they see that other people are interested in the work). Melysa raised money for the charity and that is was her goal for that night.
-Curator on the go