The Porn is Not Art show is over at Patrick John Mills Gallery and the boards and installation pieces, all but Bow Chicka Wow Wow, were collected yesterday. So as Dr. Seuss might have coined in a typo-moment, The Hat is Back!
Sharing removal time at the gallery with Mathieu Laca as he switched art from the previous show with startling Bosch-like art for the Slave to Art show, the gallery was redolent of paint and linseed oil. Absolutely intoxicating.
Laca is a classic artist who uses canvass and oil paint. He never stops creating and some work, fresh from his Montreal studio, is on the walls curing, as it were, in the days before the Thursday evening vernissage.
We spoke about what in particular epitomizes obsession or compulsion in the art that he has brought to this show, in essence, why is he a slave to his art. "It's getting up every day and painting, creating, when one does not have to. No one does this just because."
Well do I know this. One or two decorated keyboards is something a daycare might do with pre-schoolers but 100 keyboards in a variety of styles and messages, this is Pop Art.
