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Adhemar Altieri
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Toronto artist brings his life experiences growing up around a lake
to his first solo showing, a one-day exhibit at the Provo FoodbarToronto, December 15, 2017 – How much more Canadian does it get than a lake? One of this country’s most prominent features is also at the heart of “Lake World”, a series of oil paintings by Willy Johnson exploring a lifetime around Jack Lake, in the Kawarthas Region of Ontario.
Produced over the past two years, the paintings “celebrate the power of life and its mysteries, with insights that explore lake scenes and situations” according to Johnson. There’s a mystical flavour as well, or what he describes as inspiration from the coming together of science and spirituality.
The source of the imagery, Jack Lake, was named after its former owner, a native Canadian known to locals as Handsome Jack. In the early 1900s, Jack Lake became larger when a dam was built to benefit the logging industry, long gone from the region. Johnson witnessed and then interpreted what he saw on the canvas, his own impressions of a more contemporary Jack Lake, now a reservoir for the Trent-Severn Waterway.
In all, 28 paintings will be on show throughout the Provo Foodbar on Dundas St. West, a location sprinkled with art shops and galleries, most prominently the Art Gallery of Ontario across the street. The Provo already bears Johnson’s distinctive style in three “linear flow style” murals, one of them a 52-foot rendition of six iconic Toronto buildings. There is a sequence behind the bar with the Bloor Viaduct as the centerpiece, and another mural outside the eatery, framing the main entrance.
An added attraction during the showing will be a totem pole carved by Johnson which took more than six years to complete. The pole draws on his experiences around Jack Lake and brings together many of his interpretations of lake life. Work on the totem pole was completed lakeside and at his workshop in Scarborough.
Johnson’s work as a conceptual artist and graphic designer has also been featured in The Globe and Mail and the ABC television show Shadow Hunters. And he has left his mark abroad, with an acrylic painting produced in 2014 in São Paulo, Brazil. The work is on permanent exhibit at the Jesus, Joseph and Mary Maternity in Guarulhos, a suburb of São Paulo.
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1) Eclipse After Eclipse
2016-2017
The Red Painting, is part of the original 7 of the chakra section to the show.
It was the first painting in the show. It is a theme of patience in nature’s growth, as we take 180 degree trip of fate around the sun. Your opposite
birthday is the time of reaching your destiny, like meeting your soulmates planned in multiple lives together but not for infinite, just the growth that you need to take, how many lives...You choose the female role or male. To what imagination you have for yourself, a dream of a ride that grows roots slowing while still feeling the fascination of an adventure. Artwork for the song “Eclipse After Eclipse” composed by the artist.
Details 44 x 44 inches
OilFor Sale
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2) The Hunt to Sustain2017To be in the hunt still, but for a different cause of water and wood and not how much you gain, but what you can sustain with each draw of your bow. Artwork for the song “The Hunt To Sustain” composed by the artist.Details 48 x 36 inchesOilSOLD
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3) Petals That You Share
2016-2017I Studied astrology for some time, and the trueness of the sun’s elliptical passageway as well as Mayan astrology. I came to a consensus that the colour wheel aligns with a 14 zodiac true sun timing. The heavens in the multiple of 7, 14 different constellations, 14 different types of time, 14 different parts of growing under the heavens. A discovery experiment that I found while working on Lake World paintings at my cottage.Artwork for the song “Petals That You Share” composed by the artist.Details 22 x 28 inchesOilFor Sale -
4) Serpent of Time
2016-2017Your kundalini (Spinal Energy) often symbolized as two snakes, is the pathway you are taking through this life and it is determined by the planetary movements connected to your spine as the sun core energy driver. The planets are the notes and the root of discipline is to stay in time, and this figure feels a representation of me having no spine and using music as a way to re-discipline myself towards art again. Like following each planet and colour to their days of the week as they are laid out at chakra points. The Earth is connected to us by the bottom 3. Your path on this sphere can bite you, leaving you feeling to restructure your spine, your entire existence on every front.Artwork for the song “Serpent of Time” composed by the artist.Details 34 x 84 inchesOilFor Sale -
5) Generation Illusion
2016-2017We have come from a time of obeying the illusion of the material world, whether it be race or past, we focus too hard on what was instead of what is being, how this life is a simulation of fate, destiny, test and truly a trial. Many lives are lived on earth and you may take the form of an Indigenous of any jungle, forest or plains, to a material world being under an empire bigger than they could imagine. Let the voice of Indigenous cultures be the water that you need in finding realness in this manufactured world driven by illusions that destroys the sacredness of water.Artwork for the song “Generation Illusion” composed by the artist.Details 48 x 36 inchesOilFor Sale -
6) Jacob
2010-2017"The Earth Will Never Die, We Will Have To Change." - Jacob
A spirit’s representation of a Saint that lead to the building of the Jesus, Joseph and Mary Maternity in Guarulhos, asuburb of São Paulo, Brazil and inspiration of Spiritism to the artist’s practice.Artwork for the song “Darken blue” composed by the artist.Details 25 x 35 inchesOilNot for Sale -
7) One Ripple At A Time
2016-2017Purple, the colour of the crown, seven musicians playing to the infinite of their third eye. To be in sync with one another is a feeling of unity and oneness. Your actions influence how well you make the listener feel. This piece is inspired by campfire sacredness of jamming and how it is a place that brings us to be our best if not new selves together. Artwork for the song “One Ripple At A Time” composed by the artist.Details 27 x 45 inchesOilFor Sale -
8) Battle For Evermore
2017
Song interpretation piece by Led Zeppelin from the album Led Zeppelin IV. “Queen of Light with the duality of feminine magic versus male strength”.Details 30 x 30 inchesOilFor Sale -
9) Apocalypse Dreams
2017Song interpretation piece by Tame Impala from the album Lonerism. Three figures that come from haunting feelingsDetails 20 x 20 inchesOilFor Sale -
10) I Think of You. 2017
Song interpretation piece by Sixto Rodriguez from the album Coming From Reality.
Toadman is the artist’s nickname, is a guitarist and feels self represented in this piece.
Details 9 x12 inches
Oil
SOLD
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11) Blue Ridge Mountains
2017Song interpretation piece by Fleet Foxes from the album Fleet Foxes. Outstretched arms represent a cross, an energy pose to feel the strength of your inner hearth out there in the woods. One needs to not lose faith in oneself.Details 15 x 30 inchesOilFor Sale -
12 )Wild Violet
2017Song interpretation piece by Enya from thealbum Amarantine.Moonlight sail a man’s favourite tale.Details 16x20 inchesOilGift -
13) Caribbean Blue
2017Song interpretation piece by Enya from thealbum Shepherd Moons.The ocean, I dreamt of it and she was from a past close to there. A whale painting, sacred animal of the ocean, they travel in pacts and have high emotional intelligence.Details 24 x 36 inchesOilGift -
14) Wild Child
2017Song interpretation piece by Enya from the album A Day Without Rain. Pregnancy is our precious gateway to faith and hope. Chakra Flowers: Lily, Brompton Stock , Bellflower, Carnivorous Tree, Chamomile, Tulip and Poppy.Details 20 x 28 inchesOilGift -
15) Muskie 2017 Simplistic brush painting, A Muskelunge fish that roams the waters of Lake World and are a great excitement to spot and hunt. Have hooked but never caught.
Details 48 x 36 inches
Oil
For Sale
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16) Cottage
2017Many love to feel the magic of Mass, a gathering of people. Here is a classic picture from the common revelries that were held at my cottage. Were euphoria, expression, dance, singing and laughing all commenced.Details 48 x 48 inchesOilNot For Sale -
17)Acoustic Guitar
2017Favourite Instrument to play, was first introduced to it at Lake World. A simple use like black and white paint. You can get lost in it and feel like an island growing something new.Details 18 x 36 inchesOilSOLD -
18)Loon Paddle
2017A Water Bird and Water Tool, both share the same sacredness to Canadian culture of proud images.Details 18 x 48 inchesOilSOLD -
19)Great Blue Heron
2017King of the swamp and viewed as a leader that speaks at gatherings by Annisnabe, Original Lake World people, I find him at my swamp dock every morning and quacks at me, here he says a million words into one line, that symbolize infinite in motion, as a back and forth balance.Details 22 x 48 inchesOilSOLD $1,250 -
20)Painted Protected Turtle
2017
Yellow the colour of protection. A small cabin can be all that you need to create a connection to the sun. Here I connect the women’s hair to the sun to represent the eternal bond
women make with their child. The connection to the Sun as life support for infinite.
Details 24 x 24 inches
OilSOLD $600
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21) Deer
2017The Deer sits at attention listening, this is usually how I find them, an animal that usually is bold enough to ponder a moment, looking proud, then to dash off. The antlers here show my brush sun as a crown of focus I have now after completing it’s delicate procedure, a rush of leisure.Details 22 x 48OilFor Sale -
22)Alter Ego 2017 A song interpretation piece by Tame Impala from the album Innerspeaker. The dual faces of one personality. Details 16 x 16 inches
Oil
SOLD
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23)Angry Bass
2016-2017Orange Totem Animal representing feeling, the large mouth bass is a fish I have felt in my hands often throughout my life. Is always angry to be on the end of a fishing line, but a sense of energy is felt so great from the fish and power of such a small thing, leaves you with the feeling of life in your grasps.Details 30x40 inchesOilFor Sale -
24)Lure Land
2017A colourful lure that represents the sunset, this one has been my most successful in the collection, I catch and release but often don’t as their less and less every year.Details Value 10 x8 inches For Sale -
25)Frog island
2016-2017Frog island where I first learned from apainter, that to be an artist it is to have an eye of a flower, delicate as I focus in longer. My focus expands like pedals taking sunlight in to blossom. The larger my focus expands, the greater the chance I get my prize, the ideas buzzing in the sky.Details 40x40 inchesOilFor Sale -
26) Toronto Storm
2011-2017
April 2011, I was so sick of rain it felt like it would just keep
pouring and now it finally feels like it is again, with all this water I’ve dipped to finish these
paintings.
Details 24 x 36 inches
Oil
SOLD -
27)Free Spirit
2011-2017Old painting but same principals, if you ask them they say i'm a free spirit.Details 24 x 18 inchesOilFor Sale -
28)Limbo Muse
2011-2017So much of where inspiration for life to paint a whole forest, comes from the beauty of one human.Details 18 x 24 inchesAcrylic and OilFor Sale -
