Under Pressure: Ross Bonfanti, NYC

16 July - 11 August 2014
Overview

Rebecca Hossack Gallery is proud to present Under Pressure, a solo exhibition of new works by Ross Bonfanti, featuring sculptures that explore the pressures of adult life within the context of reimagined childhood toys. These discarded teddy bears and stuffed animals, found in the thrift shops and markets of Bonfanti's native Toronto, are reanimated as hardened, concrete forms, their former fur coats tufting out as poignant reminders of their former softness.  

 

In his newest series, fragments of an urban landscape break through the concrete. Nails and hardware puncture the cement skin of Bonfanti's concreatures, and steel branches support the unexpected weight of a blue jay and a hummingbird. Still, there is the suggestion of innocence and of hope - a blue-eyed cat, a bear performing a balancing act on a log, a comical stack of cement critters being held up by a lone duck. Though removed from their plush beginnings, they are beautiful and unique; reimagined and fortified for the modern age, yet bearing the visible evidence of a past unforgotten.

 

Ross Bonfanti, originally from Toronto, is a graduate of Ontario College of Art and Design. His work resides within many private collections throughout Canada, the U.S., and Asia and has been extensively exhibited in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. This will be his third solo show at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in New York. 

Works