| Leif Harmsen First Kiss |
First Kiss is a group exhibition of abstract works in mediums including painting, installation and photography. The exhibition title evokes memories of our first kiss. While the works are abstract, the invited artists worked to recreate their first kiss in the medium of their choice. Emotions are difficult to explain and can often be expressed best through an abstract visual form. Artists include: Steve Armstrong,
Andrea Bossence,
Mitchell Chan,
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For the past two years, TNT member Leif Harmsen (www.harmsen.net) has been focusing on a series of large scale digital pictures in oil on canvas that are based on low resolution reinterpretations of downloaded porn, men's online profile pics, personal and purpose posed photos and drawings. People see in them what they need - be that colourful digital abstraction, obscenity, or erotic delight. They feature rich and sophisticated colour, exacting modern geometry and suggest a digital paint-by-numbers perfection. They prove to would-be censors that "obscenity" (a legal term) no less than beauty and art, is in the eye and mind of the beholder. The initial idea for the series came out of Harmsen's frustration with the Canadian institutions of censorship, but the pictures stand on their own as abstract colour field painting, and within in our social context of digitized sexual expression.