Douglas Walker’s recent paintings on cracked surfaces are reminiscent of the blues and whites of Delft pottery or classical Chinese painting, all bridges and waterfalls. Walker’s portraits and silhouettes evoke the glamour days of the silent screen or images of Victorian ladies, updated in a curious palette and embellished with swirls and curlicues. Often the brushstrokes are feathery, revealing a hint of vanity or a lushness, and one almost suspects that a peacock may be lurking in the pale blue backgrounds.

Artist: Douglas Walker
+ kostuikgallery.com

Venezuelan Ricardo Baez-Duarte presents a variety of photographic studies that can draw the viewer into a quasi-meditative state. His subjects are diverse: an empty swimming pool, a bottle of tap water, a small town not far from Caracas, a busy beach, but his technique is such that all photos are very soothing in nature, almost lulling one into calm. There is a melancholy, though, that sometimes hangs over the work, a sort of late autumn sadness that makes one wonder if one has arrived too late.

Artist: Ricardo Baez-Duarte
+ artrbd.com

Steven Backman is a San Francisco sculptor who devotes himself to the toothpick medium, putting in countless hours of work on free standing works of both an abstract and realistic nature, work he calls The Essence of Patience. Unity is a sculpture made from glue and 2,334 toothpicks to depict a mother joined to her child – together they make up the outline of a woman’s torso. Another such free form piece is Tiptoe, a person taking a giant step. Backman also creates renditions of more familiar objects like the San Francisco street car or the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as less dimensional celebrity portraits, such as the one of David Letterman, picking his teeth with -guess what- a toothpick.

Artist: Steven Backman
+ toothpickart.com

Born in Colombia, but based in Valencia, Willy Ramos brings his Mediterranean Splendour to Toronto with a collection of colourful oils and watercolours, all florals and beautiful women. A contemporary fauvist, Ramos is at his brightest with large scale still lifes or portraits of Toronto, but it is his soft watercolors, such as Retrata de Pepa, that seduce. There is an exuberance evident in his works, an energy that comes from the play of colour and light, that draws the viewer to share in the vitality.

Artist: Willy Ramos
+ odonwagnergallery.com

A world peopled by cowboys and Robin Hoods is presented by British cartoonist Glen Baxter. Food-related humour and artistic references are thrown into the mix to create surreal cartoons of ink and pastel or crayon. In fact, Baxter claims that his website is a place “where surreal humour and tofu collide”. The collisions are bizarre happenings, with all manner of now mainstream foodstuffs (polenta, mini chicken Kievs, omelettes) appearing out of the blue. That they pop up in Sherwood Forest, the Wild West or in art galleries only adds to the weirdness of it all.

Artist: Glen Baxter
+ glenbaxter.com

Moscow-born Matvey Levenstein’s new works show a range of still life that takes place entirely within two bedrooms of a New York apartment. Despite the use of people in some of the paintings, the group is very much a reflection of stillness. At first one is deceived by the colours, often warm and bright, which draw the viewer in, but once there, it seems as though there is no further place to go. This stage of claustrophobia has been skillfully set and the viewer is left perplexed, wondering why the vases of flowers don’t bring happiness.

Artist: Matvey Levenstein
+ larissagoldston.com

Jane Fine’s paintings are intricate works of clustered forms that involve all manner of geometry and colour. The candy colours Fine uses lends a spun sugar effect to her works, and in fact, many of her forms almost resemble cakes. But don’t be deceived. Jane Fine can present a darker side as well. After Sugar Time comes heavier themes of war and battle, perhaps a pointed indication of the aftermath of excess.

Artist: Jane Fine
+ pierogi2000.com

Li Wei is a Chinese artist whose work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li provides action and illusion in works that combine the use of mirrors, acrobatics, metal wires and scaffolding, not to mention a heavy dose of stamina. Previous works have been studies on falling head first into a variety of surfaces and one that involved only his head and a young girl. Li Wei’s current collection features more excitement, hopefully more the result of smoke and mirrors rather than nerve and strength .

Artist: Li Wei
+ liweiart.com

Scott Neff is a illustrator who depends on colour and humour to drive his work forward, both of which are nicely illustrated by his paper collage Done Gone Crazy. As Neff creates, the story of his piece takes form and its characters come alive, but the artist is always interested in hearing how others might interpret his art. If a viewer’s story is more fitting, or interesting, than Neff’s own, he will replace the original. Living Inside the Box is another paper collage, while the other two works shown are digital collages.

Artist: Scott Neff
+ shinyrobot.com

Bruce Nauman’s installation of three fountain sculptures wraps up today at the Donald Young Gallery in Chicago. The One Hundred Fish Fountain is made up of ninety-seven cast bronze fish spurting water from punctured holes. The water is collected in a large basin below and then pumped back through tubing. But there is nothing peaceful about this water feature. The fish fill noisily with water, then spray it out angrily until the pumps are turned off and the remaining water drips out during the ensuing silence. The other two fountains, 3 Heads Fountain (3 Andrews) and 3 Heads Fountain (Juliet, Andrew, Rinde) are smaller in scale, each comprised of three epoxy resin and fiberglass heads that are wired together. Again, water sprays from the punctures.

Artist: Bruce Nauman
+ donaldyoung.com

October 22 is the last day to catch Edward Burtynsky's China project at the Metivier Gallery in Toronto. These are photographs that are dense with subject, all to do with modern day Chinese industry. The workers, the attempts at recycling and the abandoned manufacturing plants serve to show the behind the scenes workings of a world we hardly see, even though we come into contact with its results on a daily basis. The sheer numbers of seemingly identical workers or the mass quantities of discarded parts are disturbing, yet visually effective, drawing the viewer into a world that is very real, but that very rarely has anything to do with aesthetics at all.

Artist: Edward Burtynsky
+ edwardburtynsky.com