The membrane between us and an artwork: as tough and tender as the skin of a whale. 

The artist’s work often involves the boiling down, the cutting and flensing* of ideas into their essences. Other times, an artist expands an essential idea, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. With CUTTING THE WHALE, teenage artist Theo Gallaro examines visual artifacts of the creative process.

Over the course of this 21-day exhibition, Theo will enact the very process he seeks to demonstrate by making a public display of the ongoing act of installation and sharing his own curation process. On November 9th at 4pm, Theo will begin to install the artefacts of process that he has collected, and continue to do, adding to and adjusting the body of work daily, after school, so until the exhibition closed on November 29th.

On November 19th and 27th, the exhibit will be in one version of a complete state for viewers to engage with. The closing reception on November 27th will feature Bronze Medal, a video installation by Sonia Scarlat, another member of the Here is how you listen** collective. Bronze Medal is a collection of small moments, from this past summer and fall, that seem to reveal themselves in lonelier contexts.

*Flensing is the removing of the blubber or outer integument of whales. It is also referred to as ‘cutting-in’.

**CUTTING THE WHALE is a part of Here is how you listen: A teenage art collective, laboratory and playground for collaborative learning over time.  Mentors: Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner.

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Theo Gallaro is a multi-disciplinary artist and grade 12 student at Etobicoke School of the Arts. His work has been shown at Narwhal Gallery and Magic Pony; he has prepared art-lectures for The Rhubarb Festival and Trampoline Hall; he was part of the original cast for Suburban Beast’s Concord Floral; a member of the Tarragon Theatre’s 2014 Young Playwright’s Unit; and a member of the teenage art collective: Here is how you listen.

Sonia Scarlat is in grade 12 at Parkdale Collegiate Institute in the International Baccalaureate program. A film student with interest in visual art, her films were screened at the Revue Cinema during the school’s film festival; in addition, she collaborated with Canadian artist Ed Pien on his presentation of Lucy Tasseor’s work in the AGO. This is her first show of this nature, created through the teenage art collective Here is how you listen.
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Here is how you listen is supported by the Ontario Arts Council.