New Work (Any Day Now)

This exhibition of new work by Gwen MacGregor continues her ongoing exploration of the mundane intricacies of marking time. A new, year long, daily drawing project entitled Any Day Now is comprised of a series of 365 delicate pens drawings that ‘function’ as a kind of failed calendar. Unlike artists’ works that reaffirm their presence through the act of daily mark-making, Any Day Now records the presence of the artist and then denies it, affirms the action and then transforms it to an impotent gesture. Several other new sculptural and video works use experiences gleaned from travel to the UK and India to explore the irony and contradictions of daily routines laid bare through the lens of a traveler. An undercurrent to all the work is MacGregor’s recent academic pursuits as a cultural geographer. Together the exhibition offers a range of evocative and playful works that all keep the process of the artist’s act of making front and centre.

Gwen MacGregor is a Toronto artist working in installation, video, photography and drawing. She has received awards such as the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Artist of the Year and the Canada Council International Studio in New York. Her work is in a number of collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Oakville Galleries, Artbank, and the Royal Bank Collection. Recent projects include participation in The Santa Fe International New Media Festival and an exhibition at New York City’s Dorsky Gallery and Curatorial Programs.

MacGregor has an Honours BA from York University, a Master’s in Cultural Geography from The University of Toronto and is continuing on to pursue a PhD in Cultural Geography. She recently published the article “The Future of Toronto’s Nuit Blanche” in the journal Art and the Public Sphere published by Intellect Press and has a forthcoming chapter on Nuit Blanche coming out in the book Geographies of Urban Public Art to be published by Ashgate.