A IS FOR APPLE
Dave Dyment and Roula Partheniou
September 13 – October 11
Opening Reception Saturday, September 13, 2-5PM
“We see shapes in context, and our reactions to them depend in large part on that context. If this were an illustration for a story about the ocean, we could variously read the red triangle as the sail of a sailboat, a shark’s fin, a volcanic island rising from the sea, a “red nun” buoy, or the bow of a sinking ship. We feel very differently about the triangle if we see it as a sailboat than we do if we see it as a shark’s fin.”
– Molly Bang, Picture This
A IS FOR APPLE, the first collaborative exhibition by gallery artists Dave Dyment and Roula Partheniou, explores play, perception, pattern recognition, and cognitive geometry, from early childhood development back to early civilization.
Loosely modelled after a Montessori classroom, the exhibition features works that take the form of games, puzzles, books, building blocks, flashcards, and other teaching aids. Elemental units such as numbers, letters, and basic shapes are mobilized as conceptual tools to parse how patterns both structure our thinking and emerge from it.
The artists wish to thank Paul Henderson, Lucas Morneau and Simone Schmidt. Very special thanks to Annie Koyama and Koyama Provides.
Dave Dyment employs audio, video, photography, performance, writing, artists’ books and multiples to explore the ways that culture is formed and used. His feature-length film projects include Timeline, Watching Night of the Living Dead and Dead Ringers, the latter of which will screen this fall as part of Toronto’s Nuit Blanche.
He has exhibited throughout Canada and internationally; selected exhibitions include the University of Waterloo Art Gallery, the Power Plant, the Montreal Biennale, Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethbridge), The Plumb (Toronto), Gagosian (Los Angeles), The Owens Art Gallery (Sackville), Struts Gallery (Sackville), Platform Centre (Winnipeg), Grenfell Art Gallery (Cornerbrook), Truck Gallery (Calgary) and several public art events including Nuit Blanche (Toronto), Art in the Open (Charlottetown), Nocturne (Halifax), In/Future (Toronto) and Lola (London).
Dyment was Artist in Residence for Ontario Culture Days in 2022, and the Glenfiddich Distillery in 2008. His work sits in many private, public, and corporate collections.
Roula Partheniou’s practice explores the replica and how the remaking of a familiar object can shift our perception and perspective. She reimagines familiar things as systems of reference and exchange, mapping the slippage between object and idea, original and copy, utility and form. Experimenting with the edge between representation and abstraction, the work questions how we see and read objects and the patterns, structures and habits that shape daily perception. She has exhibited throughout Canada and internationally; selected exhibitions include at Le Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul; Gallery Closed (Pittsburgh), Marta (Los Angeles), MASS MoCA (North Adams), Arróniz Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico), Fundacion Calosa (Mexico), Thameside Gallery (UK); Tonya Bonakdar Gallery (NYC); Essex Flowers (NYC); Oakville Galleries; University of Waterloo Art Gallery; the Dunlop Gallery (Regina); Museum of Bat Yam (Israel).
In 2019, Roula was artist in residence at Google HQ in Mountain View, California. Her work is held in numerous private, public and corporate collections.
Together, Dyment and Partheniou founded Nothing Else Press, a publisher of artists’ books, multiples and editions.