Lauren Pelc-McArthur: Blanking Field 

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 25, 6-9pm Exhibition Dates: February 25 - March 13, 2016

Lauren Pelc-McArthur’s art practice responds to the melding of visual culture with digital technology, challenging the boundaries of digital art and traditional painting. Her interdisciplinary approach begins with the conventional organizing principles of portraits and landscapes, yet these principles are present in vague forms and broken into fragments, one mark disrupts another and competes for space with a third. Bold colours are used to tantalize and repel - resembling neurons that fire like neon lights as viewers cycle through headlines, listicles, and infinite scrolls. Fluctuating between various styles of painting, Pelc-McArthur unsettles the boundaries of figuration and abstraction to articulate the feelings of ‘sensory overload’ that are derived from the endless consumption of digital information.

Born in 1989, Lauren Pelc-McArthur is an emerging artist from Toronto. Graduating from the Ontario College of Art & Design (2012) with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Drawing and Painting, Pelc-McArthur explores various facets of technology and internet culture through painting, sculpture and 3-D animation. Recipient of an emerging visual artist grant from the Toronto Arts Council in 2014, she has participated in International and Canadian residencies including Kaus Australis in Rotterdam.