Tammy Hoy @ the Charolette Room

The Charlotte Room is a small little pub close to where I used to work. After a major release we would often go down there with the entire team and have a few drinks, play a little bit of pool, and do some team boding/bitching.

The thing I like about the Charlotte Room a lot, apart from the fact that they have a bunch of board games just lying around for people to pick up and play, is the art that they have displayed. There are a group of photographers called the Shadow Collective that always have their photographs displayed there. The Charlotte Room also takes part of the Contact Festival each year here in Toronto.

My favorite photographer who gets featured as part of the Shadow Collective is Tammy Hoy. She takes beautiful, lush, luxurious pictures of run-down decrepit things and places. I really enjoy the vibrancy and liveliness of the colors in the photograph in contrast to the rusty, broken, dead and forgotten things.

The other photographers in the group are also very good. In short, if you are ever around the entertainment district of Toronto and looking for a relaxed environment to hang out and have some drinks and appreciate the art that they have displayed there, I would definitely recommend The Charlotte Room!

Back in the New Year

Its been a really long time since I posted on this blog. I was going well for a while but then things got to hectic at work which starting interfering with my personal interests (ie browsing the web at work).

As part of my new years resolution I have allocated some time, even while at work, to pursue my own interests. Lets hope that I can keep this up for a large part of this new year!

With that said, happy new years everyone! Welcome to 2009!

Although January has been a bit of a lull in terms of events happening in the city, February seems to be quite the opposite. IDS09 is coming up which means that the Gladstone will have their annual exhibition for Come Up To My Room at around the same time.

Additionally, I've been looking at some designs by the artist Lisa Jones. In particular there is one series that she has called Symbiosis Chair which I find particularly appealing.



When I first saw this chair I thought that it was supposed to represent a young tree with many branches, a kind of homage to the wood that the chair was carved out of. Yet observing it further and then looking at her other work it is clear that it is supposed to represent human biology. Although this particular chair is called 'Vasa Intestina II' (which I assume is something about intestines) it seems more like the neural networks in a human brain to me.

Either way, this chair would be very delicate and even uncomfortable to sit on but beautiful nonetheless. I often wish I had a large museum-like house where I could store beautiful things even if they are not functional or practical. Maybe sometime in the future when I manage to become independently wealthy somehow ....