This time of year has traditionally been associated with slowing down, cleaning up, and putting things away. We have the art camp in the second week of July, but other than that, it usually goes pretty quiet.

Our new normal is not as pastoral. On Saturday we closed a very successful exhibition, “Only Some of Us Want to be Artists” at Project Gallery with thirty three of our grade 12’s. The exhibition was met with hugely positive reactions, including a wonderful review – click here to read the piece.

Rachel Burns continues to find success and sales of her work continue. Rachel has made sales since the end of her solo exhibition at General Hardware Contemporary last month to significant collections, private and corporate, and the level of interest in her new series has several unfinished works already on hold. Rachel recently spent three days filming a mini-documentary with the CBC to be aired later this month. As well, look for a lengthy interview with Rachel and Magenta Magazine to be published soon here: http://www.magentafoundation.org/magazine/

Noah Brown continues his successful run in the art world here in Toronto before his departure to the Cooper Union in New York, with a recent exhibition in Guelph care of curator Andrew Hunter. Noah will be featured in Dave Bidini’s West End Phoenix Newspaper – https://www.westendphoenix.com/, and joins Shellicka Anglin and others in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Guelph this fall.

Amanda Blake heads off to school in San Francisco soon but before she does she will participate in the summer group exhibition at Project Gallery with Contemporary Art grad Kendra Yee – opening is Thursday June 14 6-8pm. Kendra also just exhibited in References at Neighbour Gallery. Amanda and I are installing one of her stunning resin pylons at the QueenSpecific Gallery this Friday – so stop by any time after that over the next few weeks to see it and join us for the opening next Thursday evening for cake. QueenSpecific is next to Dufflet Pastries at 787 Queen St West.

Les Enfants Terribles sees the opening of Giselle Valencia’s first solo exhibition Rebirth & Regression Thursday June 14 7-9 pm

Next Thursday June 22 the exhibition BONOFIDE opens, featuring young multi-cultural artists from across Toronto. Curated by Spencer Julien and Temple Marucci-Campbell, it features work by Shellicka Anglin, Noah Brown, Isabella Ferrer Fernandez, Hailey Hanson, Luca Soldovieri, Teodore von Baeyer, and Alexis Vo, and is presented with support by the Department of Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada. UNITED CONTEMPORARY 1444 Dupont Street, Unit 22, Toronto, 7pm – 9pm.

Canadian Art Magazine has spent time with us over the past few weeks, and we look forward to being written about in an article in an upcoming issue – more info to come.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make our 2018 End of Year Sale our best ever, and the 2017 2018 academic year our most successful to date. A huge thank you to SESAT for helping with sales on May 24th.

For those interested in statistics, PD8 recipients received something in the order of $17 000 000 in scholarship offers. Our top four recipients alone received over $8 000 000 combined, which exceeds our previous record total for any entire grade. Invitations to PD9 were sent out around the world on Wednesday evening, and we already have 40 schools confirmed for November 2nd, 2018. We warmly invite you to tour the work of next year’s grade 12’s on November 2nd from 7pm – 10pm.

More info on its way as the ESA Contemporary Art community adds to the more than thirty exhibitions we have participated in since the start of 2018.

Matthew Varey