Our Art Toronto 2023 Booth brings together works by three artists who work in disparate materials but whose works are connected through a sense of texture and touch.
Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka is a Canadian artist who works primarily with handmade paper to construct both two and three dimensional objects that are both ethereal and structural. Her exploration of the material opens it up to new forms and purposes. Hatanaka is known for creating wearable sculptures; boiler suits sewn from this paper. Love/Fear is a patchwork quilt of paper squares, hung from a dowel. The paper has a somewhat translucent quality that allows light to shine from behind.
Derek Weisberg works primarily with ceramics. His recent work focuses largely on porcelain, one of the most difficult clays to work with. Its fine texture makes it difficult to handle at large scale. Weisberg is interested in allowing the porcelain to exist with imperfections and unexpected textures. Cracks and unexpected changes in the kiln gives autonomy to the material allowing it to collaborate in the process. Porcelain is known for its delicacy and fragility and is often confined to dainty objects. Weisberg’s treatment of porcelain allows brings it into new context.
Ezra Cohen creates his paintings in consecutive layers that are both instinctual and informed by his close study of art history. His paintings are built up through rigorous painting and repainting of the canvas. By working back into existing images and layers Cohen’s paintings accumulate texture and depth. For the presentation at this booth Cohen worked on six canvases simultaneously, creating a cohesive narrative. Although each painting is an individual work, they exist side by side as pieces of a larger, cohesive narrative.
Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka’s work was included in A Land of All Possibles curated by Anne Laure Lematire at Trotter&Sholer in 2021 and she is scheduled for a solo exhibition in November 2024. Derek Weisberg and Ezra Cohen are represented by Trotter&Sholer. Derek Weisberg’s solo exhibitions include I’ve Done Too Much Slithering, I’m Now Claiming Skies in 2021 and A Form of Contemplation in 2022. Ezra Cohen’s solo exhibitions include The Desert in 2021 and Home in 2023.