Out today: Ossington Gallery Hop w/Keith Jones, Shake-n-Make, Matt Janisse

It's dang rainy out there in Toronto today, which could be a bit of a bummer for the Big on Bloor, an arts and community fest that runs from 1 to 9pm between Christie and Lansdowne.

Still, there's lots of art to see indoors too--today the National Post published my gallery reviews for a few venues in the Ossington district, an area that's recently had an ixnay on its bar scene imposed by the city. But phew--galleries, and boozy openings, are still legal!

The article takes in Keith Jones at Hunter & Cook, Shake-n-Make at MKG127 and Ryan Dineen and Matt Janisse at Show & Tell. Here's an excerpt:

Show & Tell, the newest gallery in the Ossington district, focuses on artists with experience in the worlds of graffiti and street art. Toronto artist Ryan Dineen here offers paintings based on city-street sights. Though many of Dineen's images are interesting--particularly his studies of locked-up bicycles and rusted-out cars -- it seems he's still learning how to paint on canvas rather than concrete. More compelling to hard-core contemporary art lovers, perhaps, are Matt Janisse's prints of city streets. The prints are actually made when cars drive over paper that Janisse tapes to local laneways, providing a nice conceptual twist on "street art." His grey-toned prints can be remarkably lovely, morphing from cloudy sky to abstract landscape in one viewing.