I just returned from two weeks in and around Vancouver and, as my wife (who happens to be from BC) routinely pointed out, Toronto is ugly and boring compared to the west coast metropolis. What with mountains on one side, an ocean on the other, and a whole lot of cash being dumped in the middle, there's really no point arguing with her. However, we are stuck in the T-Dot (my hometown) and must bear its banal sight lines. As a temporary respite from the lack of visuals, Olga Korper's landscape-themed summer group show, Between Land and Sky, is a handy solution. 
Melanie Gausden, Electric Impulse, oil on canvas
Melanie Gausden's trio of classic Canadiana scenes of lake, sky, and conifers possess a tinge of Peter Doig's psychedelia and Kim Dorland's heavy hand, but are overly restrained in the stereotypically polite Canuck way. Better bad behaviour can be found nearby on Suzanne Heller's upended canvas that places a distant smog-bound city along the top edge, but then descends, literally and metaphorically, into a raging storm of tar black and murky grey green. It's the opposite of what's outside right now, but malevolent weather is a state of mind we all know too well. A lighter mood can be found in Mel Davis’ series of small abstractions that I'm going to read as a walk in a wild field on a hot summer day with effects of light and air agitating the visual field amongst the spare but colourful undergrowth. 
Meaghan Hyckie, UFO-13, coloured pencil crayon on paper
A couple Paterson Ewen works shifts things further into the atmospheric, but it's Meaghan Hyckie's obsessively worked portraits of clouds mapped out with three-point perspective precision that really take the cake. They are equal to the phenomena they replicate in that there is nothing there amidst the seeming disorder, but you can't stop looking for some anchor. Or else, you relinquish yourself to the complexity of light and shade (because that’s all that’s there) and savour the different tones of sun and shadow she captures across the half dozen drawings here (three of which have been picked up already and I can understand why).
The rest of the exhibition turns to specific life forms, beginning with Barbara Steinman’s silhouettes of birds in flight inspired by the photography of Edward Muybridge. The absence of detail here is contrasted with the extreme realism of Reinhard Reitzenstein’s miniature sculptured portraits of individual trees. They can’t stand up to the real thing, of course, and only make me pine for a walk amongst the pines. Barbara Hobot’s layered prints of netting remind me of the dried exoskeletons of cicada’s that can be found clasped to bark and branch these days. And Kristina Burda’s colour field abstractions leave the door open for interpretations based in scenery, anatomy, or ideas.
Olga Korper Gallery: http://www.olgakorpergallery.com/
Between Land and Sky continues until August 20.
Terence Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His art criticism has appeared in Canadian Art, BorderCrossings, Prefix Photo, Camera Austria, Fuse, Mix, C Magazine, Azure, and The Globe and Mail. He is the editor of Akimblog. You can follow his quickie reviews and art news announcements on Twitter @TerenceDick.
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Between Land and Sky at Olga Korper Gallery
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