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Sleeping In is Giving In
Whippersnapper is an appropriate name for the gallery that opened in February in an empty storefront on Front and Sherbourne. The gallery’s founders, three university students all under 25, somehow managed to get the landlord to give them the gallery space rent free in exchange for their labour in fixing the place up. It’s tongue-in-cheek, playful name, full of youthful bravado, qualities the trio of Luke Correia-Damude, Patrick Struys and Ryan Hughes have plenty of.
“I think the main problem for us was getting people to take us seriously. Even the artists were really skeptical,” said Correia-Damude, one of the founding three.
Much of that skepticism has probably worn-off by now. Their launch drew hundreds and got them the attention of local media. Their latest show is also a mixture of PR savvy and youthful brashness that so far has brought the group success.
“We didn’t sleep for three days before our opening and became delirious. So we asked what would happen if we made artists not sleep for two days and produce work,” explained Struys, one of Luke’s partners-in-crime. This is how the group’s latest show, “Sleep is for Dead People” was born.
Cramming 24 artists into the gallery and asking them to produce work over 24 hours is crazy enough an idea that it might just work. Walking around the surprisingly spacious gallery you see painters, illustrators, sculptors busy at work, just above the music you can hear the clicking of shutters. A group of Ryerson Fashion students are huddled at their sewing machines in middle of the room, surrounded by dozens of garbage bags of fabric they’ve found at Goodwill’s, Salvation Army’s and Value Villages. Others are crouched on the floor, trying to carve out their territory.
It’s still pretty early in the night, which explains the upbeat and optimistic energy in the room. One of the Ryerson Fashion students emerges from the pile of fabric with an eye-popping find, a piece of fabric complete with portrait with almost all of the British monarchs from William the Conqueror, through Oliver Cromwell, George III and even Elizabeth II. “Who should be slapping Henry VIII,” she asks? Trying to find an appropriate monarch to mete out Henry’s punishment.
As art students, or recent grads most of them are familiar with the trials of working late into the night, taking breaks for cigarettes and coffee. And there’s a feeling that this is a bit of a cathartic exercise for many. “I haven’t done this in so long, I just don’t have a studio space right now,” said one artist. Others noticed that their neighbours came prepared with ideas that had been in their heads for days, weeks or even months; a photograph they want to riff on, an image that had been bothering them late into the night.
The early hours go by quickly. By midnight, a few nearly completed works are already littering the ground. One artist has already painted one chunk of the gallery walls in yellow and black designs. Irene, one of the Ryerson students didn’t even think the exercise would be that challenging and compared it with her class work. “Imagine this, but with 25 people working on the same thing and with no beer or music.”
The artists started at around 8:00 pm on Wednesday night and by 3:00 am, about seven hours, into the 24 hours, fatigue starts to set in. A few find themselves getting distracted, some scurry off to a Rabba’s that like them won’t be going to bed anytime soon. A few cans of Red Bull are cracked open. It’ll be dawn in a few hours and the outcome and the success of the show is far from certain. One of the artists has jokingly sketched on the back of a lab coat “Please smack me if I fall asleep.” And those last few afternoon hours will probably be agonizing. Sleep might be for the dead, but these 24 artists will probably be crying out for it before the day is out.
Whippersnapper Gallery is located at 184 Front St. East. The opening party is tonight from 7:00-10:00pm and the work will be up until June 12th.