Wiggle Room
Simone Blain
April 7 - April 28, 2019
Egret Egress
164 Willowvale Lane
Toronto, ON
Taking small steps, not big ones
& absentmindedly entered the house,
past a bright line crossed.
All to be seen but a bowl of
brightly coloured fruit on the
table, untouched.
The room’s walls were held up only by a blue broomstick.
In a small amount of time, the room became half full.
Soda water exploded in someone’s lap.
In another corner, a woman’s face looked pale? watery? (a pale blue)
another, tangled up in a lie, was digging and scrounging in her change purse.
As the night fell, many dogs barked in the distance, a car alarm went off,
falling in perfect unison with the walls wiggling.
—
Simone Blain’s paintings focus on the vernacular, mundane world of human relationships. Her painting style is direct and paired down, and uses repetition of form and colour to strive for a sense of rhythm.
Many of the formal considerations in Blain’s recent paintings are drawn from traditional textiles and craft, or photographs that she collects daily on her cellphone. Inspired by everyday life, she gathers source material in such a way that echoes her hyperactive tendency to record her surroundings visually.
Blain’s process is slow, lines build up on the surface in layers. She cuts away strips of painter’s tape to expose subtle reliefs of paint, to produce an image that is at once meticulous and casual.
