Ian Shatilla Defeating Victory

Ian Shatilla Defeating Victory

Vernissage: Thursday, January 7 at 6 pm
Exhibition: January 8 to 30, 2010
Artist’s Talk: Thursday, January 14 at 7 pm

Exhibition Press Release:
The McClure Gallery is pleased to open the year with an exhibition of Ian Shatilla’s paintings entitled Defeating Victory. These boldly colored figurative paintings propose a blend of whimsical narration with political engagement. With an un-faltering realism that combines portraits, still-life and fantasy environments, this new work intends to resuscitate response and re-enliven a faith for political images through disassociation with the characters and events of today. A catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition.

Shatilla’s conceptual framework combines the historical presentation of culturally shared stories and, through the pervasiveness of the internet, a resurgence of a virtual form of word of mouth. The internet becomes a tool whereby ordinary people have an arena to actively respond to current events. Images of all kinds are found unadulterated and uncensored, from the uncompromising graphic violence of Abu Ghraib to irrelevant photographs of wedding cakes and dishware. Virtual fairy-tales emerge in every day banality. Appropriately sourced through google images and mainstream media, these narrative constructs aim at representing moral claims that demand questioning. As the artist attempts to store, record and restore our faith in story telling, the stage and the power is borrowed from classic fairy- tales and adapted to suit the agency of our times.

Ian Shatilla lives and works in Montreal. He obtained a BFA in print making from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Masters in Painting and Drawing from Concordia University. His work has been show in Montreal at Galerie Art Mûr, as well as in the United States, Bulgaria and Australia. He now teaches at the Visual Arts Centre.