After a long illness and extensive rehabilitation, The Drey was founded by artist Drew Simpson in 2019. The first gallery was a small ground floor space in an historic 200 year old mill tucked away in Canada’s last registered hamlet, Glen Williams. From the outset, the Gallery was committed to reimagining the traditional art business model while celebrating and exhibiting the work of under-represented, often marginalized mid-career artists.


Flipping the traditional power dynamics between the gallerist and artist has made The Drey one of the leading voices championing for change in the art world.

By standing alongside the artists, rather than merely representing them, The Drey in partnership with its roster opened its second location in Berlin, Germany in 2020.

This unique relationship between The Drey and its member artists has created an accessible support system that now spans two continents and has led to collaborations in print, fashion, video and community programming.


In 2021, The Drey moved to Toronto, settling in the ungentrified borough of East York. Carrying forward an underlying ethos of metamorphosis, The Drey challenged the exclusivity of the institution itself and created an accessible wing inside the Gallery that serves as a fine art variety store, bringing a more inclusive retail experience to the public.


Moving into 2023, The Drey will continue its symbiotic partnership with its artists, furthering creative exploration and innovation in the areas of art fairs, residency programs, media and podcasting.



www.thedreygallery.com 


The Drey Berlin: Pistorusstrasse 100, 103086. Berlin DE  ( closed  ) 

The Drey Toronto: 1229A, Woodbine Ave, M4C 4E1, Toronto CA  ( open Wed - Sat, 12pm - 5pm ) 

Contact:  drew@thedreygallery.com 


Drey Toronto

Drey Berlin

MAY 19TH - JUN 10TH



POORTRAITS


Jordan Sullivan, Daniel Hughes, Mat Brown, Deadly Prey, Melissa Steckbauer, Matt Crookshank, RF Pangborn, Jennifer Humphries, Charlie Visconages, Ron Hotz, Peter B Hastings, Britt Randle & Cameron Emerson Wylie

Toronto May19 - Jun10 2023

Reception: May20, 1pm to 8pm 

Group portrait exhibition featuring artists from Ghana, NYC, Berlin, Washington DC, Georgia & Toronto

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”

Image: Masks / A Motley Crew - Mixed Media on Plywood - Matt Crookshank



          








APR 19TH - MAY 13TH



THE GREAT AMERICAN THRILL RIDE / YUP


Evan Jones & Andrew McPhail

Toronto Apr19 - May13 2023



Evan Jones draws heavily on the visual language of America, especially the Deep South. He likens his paintings to an antique market, in which objects are juxtaposed without consideration for their original meaning or context but rather for their aesthetic qualities. By bringing together varying and disparate references and ignoring their original meaning, Jones presents them on the equal plane of the canvas as a kind of visual archive. In this way, his subjects can be considered in a new way, having been distilled by paint. Jones was born and raised in Cashiers, in the mountains of North Carolina. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from SCAD Atlanta and has exhibited throughout the United States. In 2017 Jones’ work was included in the annual publication New American Paintings South. His work was chosen a second time for inclusion in New American Paintings/South, 2020 edition.

Andrew McPhail is a Canadian visual artist. He was born in Calgary Alberta in 1961 and studied at York University where he received his MFA in 1987. Living in Toronto in the 1980's and 90's his work focused primarily on drawing, often with pencil crayon on a polyester film called mylar. After moving to Hamilton in 2005, his interest shifted towards three dimensional work and performance. In  his accumulative, craft oriented practice he uses ephemeral, disposable materials such as  band aids, Kleenex and post-its to create epic, monumental sculptures and installations and performances . He has exhibited nationally and internationally and in 2013 was the recipient of the Canada Council International Studio in Paris. He is also cofounder, with Stephen Altena, of the Hundred Dollar Gallery and a founding member of The Assembly in Hamilton, Ontario.

Image: Evan Jones ‘That Blessed Hope’ 31” x 24” Acrylic on canvas 2023



          








MAR 22 - APR 15TH


This Burning Liquid Being That I Am / Pink Ruffles in Time 


 Dual exhibitions by Gillian Frise & Peter B Hastings 

 Exhibition runs March 22nd to April 15th 2023 

 Opening Reception: Saturday March 25th, 1pm to 8pm






Max Ernst 




Image: Gillian Frise, acrylic on cardboard, 12" x 12" 


          








FEB 22ND - MAR 11TH



MY CULT LEADER


 Exhibition by John Nobrega

 Exhibition runs Feb 22nd to March 11th 2023 

 Opening Reception: Saturday Feb 25th, 1pm to 8pm




The new exhibition by John Nobrega, My Cult Leader, is comprised of two discrete but related bodies of work. A series of text-based paintings based on soft-core magazines and exploitation film posters from the 1970’s, and a group of landscapes with palm trees inspired by the orange sunset mural in Franks office in the 1983 Brian Depalma film Scarface.


These small mixed media paintings on canvas and panel, interrogate the relationship between figuration and abstraction, text and material, Art and bad taste. The artist was fascinated by the way fonts, phrases and graphics from cheap pulp sources suggested a late-twentieth-century cultural anthropology of sex and death. Out of context and often incorporated into dense abstraction, these references still retain their transgressive charge. 


The palm tree paintings explore a similar dichotomy, expressed in the famous Scarface tagline “the world is yours”: a version of the American Dream that wallows in profanity and excess, ending ultimately in a massacre. Some of these pieces are sensitively rendered, others are shadowy silhouettes on an abstract ground. A few suggest a hazy 70’s Hollywood romanticism, while others show palm trees burning in broad daylight. 





          








FEB 4TH - FEB 18TH





RADIANT FLUX


 Augmented Reality Exhibition by Jenn E Norton

 Exhibition runs Feb 4th to Feb 18th 2023 

 



Jenn E Norton is an artist using time-based media to create immersive, experiential installations using stereoscopic, interactive video, animation, augmented reality, geolocative sound, and kinetic sculpture. Often using video as a starting point within her process, her imaginative compositions use a combination of pre-cinema and contemporary display technologies while exploring the blurring boundaries of virtual and physical realms. Norton’s recent animations and augmented reality apps draw upon her interest in the ways in which information is exchanged between humans, technology, and plants. Current research areas within Norton’s practice explore the use of metaphor in physics as a conceptual genesis, communicative device, poetic practice, and demonstrative application of technological and natural phenomena. Norton has shown her work nationally and internationally, with recent exhibitions in Nuit Blanche (2022, Toronto), Platforms (Athens), and Berlin (public augmented reality series), and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Visual Arts at York University and is an Assistant Professor in Film + Media at Queen’s University.




          








JAN 7TH - JAN 24TH




Overseas Conscience / Orange Crush


 Dual exhibitions by Ron Loranger & Rod Grigor 

 Exhibition runs Jan 7th to Jan 28th 2023 

 Opening reception Jan 14th, 1pm to 8pm 





“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”


The Principle of Polarity

The Kybalion





Image: 'Crushed Cans' 50" x 40", Acrylic on Canvas, Rod Grigor 



          








DEC 7TH - JAN 7TH




VICTORY OVER THE SUN 2


                                                           TORONTO DEC 7TH - JAN 7TH


          


Andreas Golder cannibalizes the history of art, filtering it through the lenses of nightlife and pop culture to create nihilistic figural paintings dealing with the medium’s “eternal subjects”—love, decay, and the circle of life. 

The Berlin artist creates monstrous characters that call to mind the work of Francis Bacon—grotesques painted in his signature pink that combine notes of Rembrandt, Rubens, Manet and Matisse with a slaughterhouse sensibility. 

He works with a soundtrack of death metal music or Baroque opera to find a place of meditation as he paints portraits of his friends and himself, often in images that question his role within the continuum of art history. Such sinister forms are also present in his sculptures, which he calls memorials to the lowest classes.

Image detail: ‘Destroyed Sun’ - Andreas Golder








OCT 19TH - NOV 19TH




PAPER TRAIL$


            Ron Loranger, Nicholas Di Genova, John Nobrega, Romas Astrauskas, Matt Crookshank, Margaret Glew, Andrew Ooi & Stephanie Cormier


                                            Toronto Oct 19 - Nov 19 2022



This group exhibition highlights contemporary artists who utilize paper as a site of rigorous formal and conceptual inquiry through direct manipulation and engagement with its materiality. The exhibition includes work by Ron Loranger, Nicholas Di Genova, John Nobrega, Romas Astrauskas, Matt Crookshank, Margaret Glew, Andrew Ooi & Stephanie Cormier. 

Paper, the traditional support of drawing, came to occupy a particular position in conceptual and minimalist practices during the 1960s and 1970s with the rising interest in process and materials. Given the ubiquity and malleability of the medium, artists have continued to interrogate its fundamental properties, formal qualities, and its broader artistic and cultural associations. As the title of the exhibition suggests, many of the works on view evidence the journey and active hand of the artist on and within their very surface, thereby complicating notions of drawing as necessarily dictated by conventional modes of mark-making or graphic lines.






Image: ‘Untitled’ ink on paper, John Nobrega







OCT 27TH - OCT 30TH



ART TORONTO


John Kissick, Matt Crookshank, Michael Stecky, Melissa Steckbauer & Drew Simpson



Toronto Oct 27 - Oct 30 2022



Art Toronto 2022 featured 90+ galleries from across Canada, the US and abroad. 

Canada's art fair presented 20 installations and project spaces, a curated exhibition space and a full program of talks and tours. 














SEPT 15TH - OCT 15TH



GIRLHOOD


Sarah Sproule


Opening Sep 17, 1-8pm

Toronto Sep 15 - Oct 15 2022


Sarah Sproule is an emerging artist and arts administrator with a BFA in Studio Arts and a BA in Art History from McMaster University. Sarah works primarily in sculpture, printmaking, and the casting and mould-making process. Their work explores the relationship between the abjected body and their experience of fatness, disability, and queerness and the intersections that exist between them.

Image: Triptych ‘Hide & Seek’ mixed materials  on wood









AUG 17TH - SEPT 3RD




THE WILD KINDNESS


SOLO EXHIBITION BY DREW SIMPSON

Toronto AUG 17 - SEPT 3 2022

I wrote a letter to a wildflower

On a classic nitrogen afternoon

Some power that hardly looked like power

Said, I'm perfect in an empty room

Four dogs in the distance

Each stands for a kindness, yeah

Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar

 

I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness

I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness

I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness

And hold the world to its word

 

Excerpt from ‘The Wild Kindness’ by Silver Jews 



Image: Man After Man No. 4, Acrylic on Plywood, 24" x 24"




JULY 27TH - AUG 13TH




UNDER THE HAPPENSTANCE BRIDGE


Laurie Skantzos and Ian Leach

Toronto Jul 27 - Aug 13 2022

As two artists sharing their lives together, Ian and Laurie employ different physical approaches to their work, but share a common exploration of ideas within set parameters.

Ian works with salvaged findings - favouring cardboard, reclaimed wood and rescued house paint. The works are created with no preconceived idea before entering the studio, and have a physicality and immediacy to them. Laurie works with repeated, templated forms, exploring endless colour relationships and textures. Her work has evolved from assemblages created from detritus strewn on the studio floor and mounted on shaped plywood. They have been steadily refined over the past three years and are now painted directly on the wood.  Both artists' work retain an imperfection and rawness that references their beginnings. They offer a gentle invitation to be present with each piece and its surroundings. 

Image: Work by Laurie Skantzos






JULY 6TH - JULY 23RD




APOPHENIA ZEPHYR NO. 8


Joe Becker, John Rogers, Charlie Visconage, Matt Crookshank, Cameron Wylie, Tyler Armstrong, Jonah Strub, John Kissick & James Hiyme Brummett


Toronto Jul 6 - Jul 23 2022 



Apophenia Zephyr is an ongoing series of group exhibitions by The Drey set on exploring the aesthetic whiffs that emanate from mistakenly meaningful connections between unrelated things.

Image: John Rogers





JUNE 15TH - JULY 2ND



A SEAT AT THE TABLE


Solo exhibition by Cameron Wylie

Toronto Jun 15 - Jul 2 2022

Each seat at the kitchen table is an invitation. An empty chair calls for us to settle in and enjoy a meal. The other vacant seats ask for company, making the kitchen table an inherently communal space. Whether it be sipping a morning coffee, or sitting down for an intricate appetizer, dinner and dessert, a set table beckons us to enjoy one another’s company. Breaking bread together transforms the mundane and repetitive practice of eating into a transcendent ritual. Repeated differently with each dinner, the procession of a meal is spiritual simply through being together. The rites of eating connect us to one another – not by the specific food that is served, but through the conversations between bites, and the love that goes into preparing food for friends and family. The artwork in A Seat at the Table speaks to this sense of intimacy, and evoke the spiritual potentials of convening to eat together. These paintings motion for viewers to pull up a seat at the table, relax, and enjoy one another’s company.

 

Text by Hailey Kobrin





MAY 25TH - JULY 11TH


THE WISDOM OF IMPERFECTION


An Exhibition by Romas Astrauskas

Toronto May 25 - Jun 11 2022 

I tend to use found materials in my practice, worn and weathered things that visually reveal an obvious temporal history. Often my ensuing decisions and choices are informed or influenced by these arbitrary elements of degradation. My pursuit is to make something elegant, meaningful or poetic out of something that is superficially very crude and simple. To disregard fussiness and achieve results with a minimum display in an effort to frame and highlight the wisdom and truth found in imperfection. 

image: Romas Astrauskas






MAY 4TH - MAY 21ST


DOUBLE RAINBOW


Solo exhibition by Michael Stecky

Toronto May 4 - May 21 2022

The Drey Gallery, Toronto presents a collection of new sculptural works from artist Michael Stecky.

 

Jigsaw puzzles, before completion exist in an abstracted state with an embedded set of rules for transformation into a photographic image. Stecky’s series of sculptural paintings or assemblages explore the idea of an alternative organization of puzzle pieces. The overpainted puzzle images influence the artwork’s organization, acting as a schematic for a new work. The repetition of pattern and colour creates a magnetic energy below the surface. The compositions read at once within the tradition of abstract modernist paintings but also suggest textile works or the modular nature of data streams. The exhibition title, considers the premise of the double rainbow being a rainbow and its shadow self, composed of both intense colour and monochromatic black or dark elements. 

Image: Detail from 'MURMURATION'

mixed media sculpture

                Found objects, spray-paint, wood                 

 





APRIL 13TH - APRIL 30TH


IT'S AN INSIDE JOB


New Work by Michael Nathaniel Green

Toronto Apr 13 - Apr 30 2022

Much of our existence overwhelms, bewilders, and causes us to function on auto pilot. Whether I want it to be or not the surreal is at the foundation of my work. My first hand experience of psychosis has revealed to me that there is so much more to reality than what we take in from our five senses. This invisible world is something I want to touch in my work and immerse the viewer in. I want to evoke the question, “What exactly is going on here?” like a bewildering still life.  By emphasizing the relationship of the in-between; the objects and their placement unfold a poetic dialogue that points to the invisible. The objects become more of potentialities than solid objects with strong hints of the Ephemeral lingering in the work. These Ephemeral moments in the invisible world point to emotions, fragility, and mental health, all themes I use in my work. 

Image: Detail from 'Invisible Offering' mixed media sculpture




MARCH 26TH - APRIL 9TH

MY WILL IS GOOD



                                          Solo exhibition by John Nobrega

Toronto Mar 26 - Apr 9 2022

“My Will is Good” an exhibition of new paintings by John Nobrega, takes the form of 12 portraits of Catholic Nuns, each in a state of heightened ecstatic experience. The individual Nuns, depersonalized in their traditional habits become icons of grief, ecstasy, or rage, respectively. The imagery for these portraits is drawn from Nunsploitation films , a genre of primarily European soft-core exploitation films that peaked in the 1970’s.  The plot of these films generally describe  a downward spiral, wherein the Sisters of a convent descend into decadence, madness and violence. Nobrega isolates these profane images, and in painting them in the mode of Classical European Religious Art, restores them to the status of Sacred Iconography.

 

The Drey Toronto, 1229A Woodbine Ave, M4C 4E1, East York

Image: 'Untitled' 9"x12" oil on canvas



MARCH 2ND - MARCH 19TH


I’M A TERRIBLE PERSON AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT


New Work by Kineko Ivic

Toronto Mar 2 - Mar 19 2022


Kineko Ivic is a Toronto-based multi disciplinary artist and curator, currently  creating hybrid works that fluctuate between figurative and abstraction. 

 

Ivic’s current exhibition at The Drey titled ‘I’M A TERRIBLE PERSON AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT’ is a series of paintings that depict personages that he refers to as ‘Goblins’ 

Each Goblin carries an emotive text across their torso, usually derived from a pop  culture limerick. 

 

Greener Pastures gallery was the brainchild of Ivic which for over half a decade put on some of Toronto’s most diverse and well received international exhibitions. 

Apart from exhibiting others works across Canada, USA and Europe, Ivic’s art has been featured at Andrew Kreps Gallery NYC, Angell Gallery Toronto, Anne deVillipouix Paris, Gavin Brown’s Passerby NYC and Freight and Volume NYC. 

 

All paintings, oil and acrylic on canvas, 

Hearts

16” x 20"

Oil and acrylic on canvas 


FEB 9TH - FEB 28TH


WILDING

Solo exhibition by Melissa Steckbauer


Through her work, the artist, reiki teacher and lifelong student of metaphysics-Melissa Steckbauer seeks to increase possibilities of intimacy and communication by emphasizing the ecstasy of everyday human experience. 

Steckbauer was a member of the collaborative artist network ƒƒ, and founding director of the exhibition space, The Wand, she now runs The Sensortorium and lives and works in Berlin. For the last several years – and after a comprehensive focus on painting – she has been developing a body of work on paper, exploring all of the facets and complexities of human sexuality through this medium.

Opening reception, Saturday February 12th, 1pm - 7pm

( Refreshments generously provided by our friends at Great Lakes Brewery ) 

The Drey Toronto, 1229A Woodbine Ave, M4C 4E1, East York 

Image: 'Untitled' 9 1/2" x 7", acrylic on paper

JAN 8TH - FEB 5TH


SUDDEN DEATH

New works by Tyler Armstrong

Tyler Armstrong is a Canadian artist enveloped in highly expressive figurative and still life acrylic and oil based paintings, collages and drawings.  His painting ‘Hypocrite’ was chosen by Spanish publisher, Fulgencio Pimentel, to be featured on the cover of author Ruben Lardin’s latest novel, “La hora atomica” (The Atomic Hour). He has showcased work in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Mississauga, Hamilton and London. 

Opening reception, Saturday January 15th, 1pm - 6pm

( Refreshments generously provided by our friends at Great Lakes Brewery ) 

The Drey Toronto, 1229A Woodbine Ave, M4C 4E1, East York 

Image: 'Birds of a feather' 10" x 8", acrylic on canvas 

DEC 4TH - JAN 4TH

UNCOMMON DENOMINATOR


The Drey gallery is excited to announce its expansion from Berlin to Toronto this December with our kick off exhibition featuring the works of local multi disciplinary artist Matt Crookshank. 

Crookshank’s new macabre digital series ‘Uncommon Denominator’ will be housed simultaneously at both Drey locations in an effort to bridge the distances, both physical and metaphysical between On and Off.



Matt Crookshank is a guerrilla ontologist, gonzo alchemist and multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Toronto. His practice fearlessly encompasses paint, drawing, performance, design, and Emmy award nominated digital animation and effects. An enfant terrible sprung from the Queen West art scene of the early oughties, Crookshank lives to collaborate, break molds, and take risks, applying a gleefully slapstick contemporary art sensibility to perennial themes such as death, art, love, trauma, and loss. Part Jokester, part shaman, Crookshank intrepidly follows his artistic intuition wherever it may lead, creating wild painted and digital abstracts, ribald performance, fluid drawings and intensely detailed and painterly digital montages. In the past he has worked with General Hardware Contemporary and Georgia Sherman projects in Toronto. Abroad he has shown at Galeria Anomalia in Mexico City and is slated for an upcoming show at the Drey Gallery in Berlin.


Opening reception, Saturday Dec 4th, 1pm - 8pm

( Refreshments generously provided by our friends at Great Lakes Brewery ) 

The Drey Toronto, 1229A Woodbine Ave, M4C 4E1, East York 

The Drey Berlin, Pistorusstrasse 100, 103086. Berlin DE 

Image: 'Death' 2021, Digital Print by Matt Crookshank 

JULY 24th - SEPT 1st


DEN OF DAGGERS


While our Toronto storefront gallery gets finalized, The Drey is hosting its second huiskammer exhibition featuring the constructively heavy works of artists Romas Astrauskas, Michael Stecky and Simon Petepiece. 


"Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades ( mass-produced items promoted into art objects ) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen"  Charles Simic 

Opening reception, Saturday July 24th, 2pm - 8pm

The Drey, 1229 (1/2) Woodbine Ave, M4C 4E1, East York 


Image: Orange Transient Spike by Michael Stecky 

JULY 10th - SEPT 1st

SMEARBALLS: CRYPTODUMPS 


Director and animator, Nick DenBoer is exhibiting a montage of his Cryptodumps at The Drey Berlin's street front video booth. 

DenBoer is an internationally recognized artist in the medium of animation with a recent Juno nomination for his work as well as holding tenure as a content creator for Conan O'Brien.

Opening reception, Saturday July 10th, 12pm - 5pm

The Drey Berlin: Pistoriusstraße 100, 13086 Berlin. 


JUN 19th - JULY 19th


Candy Jail 

While our storefront gallery gets finalized, The Drey is launching Toronto's only international Huiskammer gallery this summer! Please join us for our inaugural exhibition 'Candy Jail' at our Toronto satellite project space with featured artists:

Hiyme Brummett, Ed DeRyke, Laurie Skantzos and John Kissick.



Opening reception, Saturday June 19th, 2pm - 8pm

The Drey: 1229 ( 1/2 ) Woodbine Ave. 


JAN 1st - MARCH 1st 2021

Twenty one Improvised Extinctions: 

Tasman Richardson @ The Drey Berlin


1200 digital paintings, drawn by the artist, interpreted by gauGAN, the AI app. Each iteration has been an attempt to steer a narrative, not knowing how each step would be interpreted by the AI. I draw, it responds, then I respond with small revisions, always building on the previous result. Each landscape was evolved slowly and then suddenly scrubbed by a cataclysm, wiping the slate to begin a new world. Meanwhile, day and night, meeting and working at my screen, my window started to feel like another screen, under glass. Window browsing virtual and real are more alike now. We cast ourselves into the screens and the screens respond, interpret our wants, and narrow our field of view until our landscape is reduced to a soliloquy to ourselves.

1 min 20 sec loop, 1080x1080p, 30 fps, stereo.



OCT 29th - JAN 1st 2021


Apophenia Zephyr


Our sister gallery-The Drey Berlin, kicks off its Deutschland expansion with an exploration of the aesthetic whiffs that emanate from mistakenly meaningful connections between unrelated things.

Vernissage: Thursday October 29th, 5pm to 10pm. 

This salon style grouping will feature artworks by: Melissa Steckbauer; Matt Crookshank; Romas Astrauskas; John Kissick; Michael N Green; Ron Loranger; Christopher Lori; Drew Simpson and Casey McGlynn. 

The Drey's sister gallery is located at the Weissensee Studio, Pistoriusstraße 100, 13086 Berlin. 


Promo image by Casey McGlynn, 'Motorcycle Momma'  2018, acrylic, India ink, oil pastel 

Sept 26th, 2020


IMMACULATE MISCONCEPTION

It's our first birthday and to celebrate we're having an official baby shower to welcome our newest foreign bundle of joy, The Drey Berlin @ Weißenssee Studio.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”


Mark Twain

 

Vernissage: Saturday Sept 26th, 12 to 6

New works being exhibited by Michael Nathaniel Green and James (Hiyme) Brummett. 

Also in attendance :

Ulysses Castellanos, Kiniko Ivic, Matt Crookshank, Jubal Brown, Ron Loranger, Christopher Lori, Ed de Ryk, SP38, Casey McGlynne, John Kissick and Romas Astrauskas 

Promotional image: Matt Crookshank  'Illuminated Caveman' (detail) 

July 18 - Jan 1, 2020


UNLIMITED HANGOUT

In an attempt to atone for the contemporary trend of curatorial malpractice, The Drey will distance itself from the current climate of mass manufactured likabilty and divisional descentism through the creation of a fictitious art collective we’re calling “Unlimited Hangout’

A Limited Hangout is "spy jargon for a favourite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."

Vernissage: Saturday July 18th, 12 to 6

Exhibition runs into the dystopian year 2021

Exhibiting artists:

Ulysses Castellanos, Kiniko Ivic, Matt Crookshank, Jubal Brown, Ron Loranger, Christopher Lori, Ed de Ryk, SP38, Casey McGlynne, John Kissick, Romas Astrauskas and James (Hiyme) Brummett.

Promotional image: Ulysses Castellanos, detail of "Royal Family' Courtesy of Georgia Scherman Projects.


June 24 - July 16, 2020

TERRITORIAL PISSINGS

Reception : Saturday, July 4th, 3 - 9pm

Exhibition Dates:  June 24th- July 16th, 2020

Location: The Drey, 515 Main St, Unit M2, Glen Williams 

Territorial Pissings features the private collection of Gallery Overlord, Drew Simpson. Artists include: Ron Loranger, Pascal Paquette, Romas Astraukas, Istvan Kantor, Mat Brown,  Joe Becker, Peter Wilde, Derik Mainella, Matt Bennett, John Kissick,  Robert Farmer, Jubal Brown and Tony Toccalino. 

APR 1 - JUNE 1, 2020

DEN OF THE DAMNED

Deception Reception : Saturday, May 2nd, 3 - 9pm

Exhibition Dates: April 1st - June 1st, 2020

Location: The Drey, 515 Main St, Unit M2, Glen Williams 


The Drey has the privilege of hosting Monty Cantsin as our 3rd exhibiting solo artist during the Covid 19-84 Plandemic.

Istvan Kantor (a.k.a. Monty Cantsin) is active in the fields of robotics, sound, video, performance and new media. His work has been shown at many prestigious international art events, including Documenta and Ars Electronica.

Infamous for his "blood-x donations" to the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the National Gallery (Ottawa), AGO (Toronto), and the Ludwig Museum (Koln), just to mention a few, Kantor/Cantsin's criminal records are even longer than his list of awards. The media and critics have described his work as rebellious, anti-authoritarian, and intellectually assaulting, as well as technically innovative and highly experimental.

He has received the Telefilm Award for Best Canadian Video (Images festival, Toronto), the Transmediale 01 award in Berlin Germany, for his new video Broadcast, and the Canadian Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Internationally known as the founder of Neoism, Istvan has lived in Budapest, Paris, Montreal, Portland, New York and since 1991, Toronto Canada. 


FEB 1 - APR 1, 2020


CLUSTER FCUK

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 7th, 12 - 6pm

Exhibition Dates: February 1st - April 1st, 2020

Location: The Drey, 515 Main St, Unit M2, Glen Williams 


The Drey is pleased to announce its first salon-style exhibition on display from Feb 1 – April 1 at our new gallery in the Williams Mill.'Cluster Fcuk'  features dozens of artworks by Amanda Reeves, Romas Astrauskas, Andy DeCola and Drew Simpson. 
The Salon exhibition style was established in 1667, by the French Academie des Beaux-Arts and held in Paris at Louvre. In order to accommodate the vast quantity of work submitted by students of the Academie des Beaux-Arts, artworks were displayed from floor to ceiling with little space separating frames. This style has since been incorporated throughout history in museums and galleries, including the Art Gallery of Ontario’s display of its European collection. 

DEC 7 - JAN 15, 2020

STAY POSITIVE 


STAY POSITIVEA preview of new work by Jubal BrownThe Drey515 Main Street, Unit M2, Glen Williams ONL7G 3S9Opening reception, Saturday December 7th, noon till 6pmExhibition runs December 7th to January 15th 2020 Jubal Brown STAY POSITIVE – Artist statement It has always been my dream to be an iconoclast, but having a good time got in the way. STAY POSITIVE marks my return to art object exhibition after a hiatus of 10+ years. My personal difficulty with the “arts community” split my loyalties between identifying as an artist and being a scumbag outsider, struggling with my place in the community while fomenting a decadent leisure as a rejection of social mores. Seditionary by nature, criminal by necessity, the degenerate lifestyle of a post-postmodern libertine suited me fine, on the wrong side of capitalism I found myself a facilitator of indulgence, most artists need a job. Grinding, chopping, slinging, balling… I enjoyed the spoils of my transgressions, the illumination of my sins was glowing, but rock ‘n’ roll was killing my life. After a series of personal disasters, a brush with death brought me full circle to my present vocation as an addiction and mental health support worker. STAY POSITIVE serves as a milestone of that personal development, my life and work.
The conceptual products in this exhibition are part of the photo series INSPIRATIONAL LINES created with photographer Shawn McPherson. Motivational words and aphorisms are spelled out using white powder. It’s a cheap one-liner. INSPIRATIONAL LINES is informed by the trickle down gangster politics of survival by any means necessary into the milieu of white middle-class art poseur and examines a relationship with substances, choices and consequences, while simply acknowledging a life of excess with dry humour and a positive attitude. It’s ironically appropriate now with the artist and the gallerist both facing serious health issues due to indulgent lifestyles, Brown (multiple organ failure) and his host Simpson (Diabetes) look to the future with naïve optimism and face the ongoing struggle to STAY POSITIVE! Buy art not drugs

 

OCT 19 - DEC 1, 2019 

'Potluck Dynamo' studio studies byJohn Kissick.


Opening reception, Saturday October 16th, noon till 6pmExhibition runs October 16th to December 1, 2019 Trained as a painter and writer, John Kissick has held numerous academic posts, including Chair of Critical Studies at Penn State University’s School of Visual Arts, Dean of the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design from 2000 to 2003, and for the last nine years, Director of the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph. Kissick’s exhibition record includes numerous solo exhibitions in Canada, the USA and Germany, and his work has been included in a number of important survey exhibitions and public collections. A mid-career survey entitled John Kissick: A Nervous Decade, curated by Crystal Mowry, toured Canada from 2010 to 2012 and was accompanied by a major publication. Kissick is also the author of Art: Context and Criticism (1992,) was editor of the Penn State Journal of Contemporary Criticism from 1990 to 1995 and has written numerous catalogue essays and articles for periodicals. Two recent essays: “Elephants in the Room” for Canadian Art Magazine and “Disco and the Death Switch: Tales from Contemporary Abstraction” for Border Crossings were nominated for National Magazine Awards in 2009 and 2010.  John Kissick was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy for the Arts in 2005.

OUR CONCEPTION