Lee Goreas

Curated by: John Armstrong and Moira Clark

9 February 1995 - 30 April 1995
Opening Reception 9 February 1995 8pm

Bathroom:

one work…Stamped

One Work is a series of exhibitions that responds to the possibilities of MErcer Union’s new location. Individual artworks will be exhibited in the various spaces outside of the two formal galleries. These spaces include the stairwell, the windows and the foyer area.

In Stamped (1995), Lee Goreas will “stamp” up to eight configuration of rubber stamp impressions directly onto the gallery’s washroom walls at what would be eye level for a seated viewer. The stampings are playfully arranged in spirals, concentric rings or repeat. Travel – or, more specifically, the transportation of messages – is suggested by the motifs found on these recycled rubber stamps. The stamps read “Air Mail,” “tanks!,” “E.T. phone…,” and “safety Standards,” or they depict a pair of lips, a child on a toliet…#. In an irreverent wink, these stamps recast the idiosyncratic or transgressive gestures of public graffiti. Goreas represents communication as a limited semiotic code composed of routine office stationary and special order joke items.

Lee Goreas is a Toronto artist who works in painting and installation. His work has been exhibited in Ontario and Western Canada, and will be included in an exhibition of the work of four Canadian artists to be held this summer at the International Artists’ Centre in Poznan, Poland.