Scott Treleaven

Opening reception: Saturday March 3, 2018, 4-6pm

COOPER COLE is pleased to present Meson, a solo exhibition by Scott Treleaven.

This marks Treleaven’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Scott Treleaven’s most recent body of work is an ongoing series of torn photo-collages; bipartite constructions made from over two decades worth of the artist’s own 35mm snapshots.

Produced by physically tearing in half and reassembling 4 x 6” photographs, Treleaven creates a new visual unity between the disparate pieces. The tear in the work becomes a transition between two fields; an edit, a horizon and a fulcrum. Usually depictions of atmospheric effects in nature, or quotidian domestic and studio settings, the assemblages avoid easy visual or surrealist puns, working instead with arrangements of subject, light, colour, and space. Each photo surrenders up a fraction of its original form, now segments in a new narrative that evokes the ghosts of their discarded halves.

Treleaven’s artistic origins are in small-gage filmmaking and self-published zines that made an enduring contribution to independent, queer, and underground culture. The modest and democratic tenants of his early practice continue in his material choices, as well as his theory of collage as a basic gesture of insolence; a social strategy for both discord and unanticipated beauty. The photographs change from a serially reproducible, private object into a singular unique artwork by a process that usually signifies the ultimate rejection of an image.

Scott Treleaven (b. 1972, Toronto, Canada) graduated from the Ontario College of Art & Design in 1996. His paintings are heavily informed by his early filmmaking career, as well as work in a variety of other media spanning collage, sculpture, photography, and publishing. His seminal zines have been included in historical overviews such as ‘The Magazine – Documents of Contemporary Art Series’ (MIT Press 2016), ‘Showboat: Punk, Sex, Bodies’ (Dashwood 2016), and ‘In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955’ (JRP|Ringier 2009). Treleaven has had solo exhibitions at Invisible-Exports, New York; Jessica Silverman, San Francisco; Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago; The Breeder, Athens, Greece; COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada; The Suburban, Milwaukee, USA (June 2017), amongst others. He has also participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as Grazer Kunstverein, Austria; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; ICA, Philadelphia; MoMa PS1, NY;The Warhol Museum PA; and 80WSE, NY, USA; Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; Maureen Paley, London UK; Alison Jacques, London UK; the British Film Institute, London UK; amongst others. Treleaven currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

For more information please contact the gallery:

info@coopercolegallery.com
+1.416.531.800