Tara Cooper & Elizabeth D'Agostino @ loop Gallery, 1273 Dundas St. W. February 27, 2010

loop Gallery is pleased to announce exhibitions by members Tara Cooper entitled Off-Season, and Elizabeth D’Agostino entitled Artifacts of the Self-Made.

Off-Season, Tara Cooper’s first exhibition at loop, traces the route that 95 year old Doris Rittinger has taken for the past 40 years, from Southern Ontario to Panama City Beach, Florida.

Looking at the migratory habits of the retired along with the impact of aging, the installation combines film, photography and drawing:

"I am 95 years old today. But I do not feel 95 years old, I feel I am a healthy 75, that is called my body age. Sometimes I think our bodies age more slowly than our minds. My mind feels like 200, pilled and worn transparent like an old sheet.”

Working within a narrative framework, Tara Cooper’s practice considers the conditions of desire, both the murmurings of regret and the longing for the future. As a Toronto based artist, her expression is often Canadian in nature, from the habits of the snowbird, to the idea of north and the language of weather. Tara received her MFA from Cornell University in 2008, specializing in the disciplines of print, film and installation. She currently teaches at the Ontario College of Art & Design. www.taracooper.com

In Elizabeth D'Agostino's Artifacts of the Self-Made, the artist is reminded of familial sites and surroundings she encountered growing up. It embodies a sense of individual desire to recapture and restore memories and fragments of historical passages, which influence daily life. D'Agostino is concerned with the notion of acclimation and how the environment begins to inform each other.

The images take the form of the human body, human artifacts, vegetable and animal life. These images are displayed within complex settings as delicate curiosities in D'Agostino's drawings and prints; the natural world connects the human-made world. This work furthers her investigations of the transitional place, and the various stages that surround the transformations and adaptations of an object and the rooted structures that have formed their environment displayed as objects of curiosity.

Elizabeth D'Agostino received her BFA from the University of Windsor and her MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL. She has exhibited in Canada and internationally and was selected as the 2008 Visiting Artist by the Fine Arts Department at the University of South Dakota. D'Agostino lives and works in Toronto and is a member of Open Studio. She teaches printmaking at the Ontario College of Art & Design and is the Curriculum Coordinator at the Toronto School of Art. www.elizabethdagostino.com

Please join the artists in celebrating the opening reception on Saturday, February 27th from 3-6 pm.

The exhibitions run from February 27 - March 21, 2010.

Gallery Hours: Wed - Sat 1-5pm, Sun 1-4pm.

Official Website: http://www.loopgallery.ca