Anonymous Somebody, ArtworxTO, TTC Subway-Spadina to Runnymede Stations, Runnymede Station, Toronto, ON
Excerpt from webapp.driftscape.com/map/19d41cae-db10-11eb-8000-bc1c5a8...:
Anonymous Somebody
Runnymede Station
Elicser Elliot's distinctive aerosol style is on display in groups of portraits of subway patrons throughout the concourse and street level. The images are taken from Elliot's sketchbook of real and imagined people: for example, the nurse is actually Elliot's agent's grandmother who lives near Runnymede Station, and took the same subway to work every day for 40 years. As the artist says, ““Anonymous Somebody” captures the snippets of our bustling Bloor West Village lives while standing still. The artworks aim to communicate the story of individual spirit as fresh and relevant to the metabolism of the neighbourhood. The images work as an anchor to a thought or memory for the person viewing it - to commemorate, celebrate, provoke, and heal”.
The characters are presented three-dimensionally, on panels that do not wholly align with the surrounding tiling, as if served up to us for our contemplation. We might recognize ourselves in them – the woman on the cell phone at the top of the escalator, the man sleeping on a streetcar after a hard shift, the woman sitting on a bench with a coffee and a magazine, the man waiting for a bus with his hands in his pockets. These are the glimpses we see as we transit through our day, and these we see again and again as we pass through the station. We will have our favourites, wonder at their stories, give them names, design a backstory for them.
Elicser Elliot is an alumnus of Sheridan College's animation program. Initially an aerosol artist, his work has been shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum and the McMichael Museum.
Anonymous Somebody, ArtworxTO, TTC Subway-Spadina to Runnymede Stations, Runnymede Station, Toronto, ON
Excerpt from webapp.driftscape.com/map/19d41cae-db10-11eb-8000-bc1c5a8...:
Anonymous Somebody
Runnymede Station
Elicser Elliot's distinctive aerosol style is on display in groups of portraits of subway patrons throughout the concourse and street level. The images are taken from Elliot's sketchbook of real and imagined people: for example, the nurse is actually Elliot's agent's grandmother who lives near Runnymede Station, and took the same subway to work every day for 40 years. As the artist says, ““Anonymous Somebody” captures the snippets of our bustling Bloor West Village lives while standing still. The artworks aim to communicate the story of individual spirit as fresh and relevant to the metabolism of the neighbourhood. The images work as an anchor to a thought or memory for the person viewing it - to commemorate, celebrate, provoke, and heal”.
The characters are presented three-dimensionally, on panels that do not wholly align with the surrounding tiling, as if served up to us for our contemplation. We might recognize ourselves in them – the woman on the cell phone at the top of the escalator, the man sleeping on a streetcar after a hard shift, the woman sitting on a bench with a coffee and a magazine, the man waiting for a bus with his hands in his pockets. These are the glimpses we see as we transit through our day, and these we see again and again as we pass through the station. We will have our favourites, wonder at their stories, give them names, design a backstory for them.
Elicser Elliot is an alumnus of Sheridan College's animation program. Initially an aerosol artist, his work has been shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum and the McMichael Museum.