Statement
My work is based upon the basic human tendency of Anticipation and Disappointment, and the resultant joy when we free ourselves of this cyclical burden.
Humanity has aspired to a great many things, and we have all benefited from that aspiration.
However, when we bring our assumptions, plans and desires to human relations, we are forever betrayed, not by our friends and loved ones, but by our misplaced expectations of others.
If we just stopped presuming how another person should act, or how the world should be, we would all suffer less.
We must still make an effort to improve the world, but we must not become attached to the permanency of the outcome of our efforts.
The concept of misplaced expectations is central to Buddhism. When we invest our hopes and self-esteem outside of ourselves, we open the door to disappointment and disillusionment. Distancing oneself from the chains of an exterior set of expectations is highly liberating. There is just so much less to drag around.
We want our art to be conceptually meaningful, not just pretty to look at. I hope to use my work to make Buddhist thought more accessible to art lovers on a visceral level. I want concepts to be understood visually, without betting into the Verbal.
While I have experimented in different fine art techniques since I first went to art school in 1979, I have always been drawn back to oil painting. Among the various techniques I have explored, I have dabbled in watercolours several times. However, I can't help but go beyond that light hand required. Finally, I brought the saturation and flowing of the paint from watercolours to oil paints.
I love the viscous properties of the paint and the slow drying times that allow me to go back to the canvas at different times and create different effects. I also love the way the paint falls into the grooves of the canvas or lays over the surface, regardless of the texture. I enjoy the sound of the brush stroking or hitting a tightly stretched canvas. And frankly, i enjoy the recognition and appreciation by viewers in an acrylic dominant world of what is perceived as a difficult medium.
The mystique of oil paints combined with the romance of the subject matter creates instant identification. Everyone responds to paintings of food, despite how they might be rendered. Whether committed in high realism or in my more abstract "decaying" compositions.
Food is such a loaded topic. Celebratory meals, treats, bribes, love, food as medicine, pesticide laden fruit, cash crops from countries that can't feed themselves, binge eating, anorexia, starve a cold/fee a fever,... and on and on. "Food and Shelter"; it is human nature to put Food first. We learn to expect so much more from food than simple nutrition.
Personally, I love food, I love to eat and I'm a great cook. if i were to change careers, I would want to be a food critic. Painting food allows me to further my relationship with food, and exploit all the intrinsic manipulations, without damaging my immediate family.
My own family had its food issues. My parents had a peculiar marriage. In reflection, as an adult who is now married, I can look back and suspect that they may never really have loved each other, there was always food to bind them together. Both children of the depression, they took great pride in adequately feeding, and over feeding, their four tall brawny sons. Meals were never gloriously prepared, but they were good, wholesome and there sure was a hell of a lot of it.
Consequently, my siblings and i were no taught eating habits to naturally keep us slim. Acquisition of a healthy physique had always been a temporary choice, not the natural default behaviour.
Still, weight is not what my work is about, nor is food really. But I have developed such a heightened relationship with it, that it has become my natural metaphor for issues that I want to explore.
The ripe fruit, on the point of decay, and the prettily decomposing backgrounds of my work represent that tipping point of joyful anticipation and the ugly reality of all our dreams gone wrong. I find that food and the way I show it is the natural expression for all of the concepts that guide my own life; concepts that challenge me while bringing great peace and happiness.
March Gregoroff has spent a relatively typical life (some good, some bad) and has arrived at the place where all grown-ups do. “Why am I here?” Despite it being typical, all of the events of this life seemed to have converged to where she might comfortably, knowledgably, answer this question.
Gregoroff is here to have fun, to be at peace, and to make a positive contribution to the lives of others.
“Why?” The artist has memorized many convoluted, esoteric and highly intelligent answers to why. However, Woody Allen said in Hannah and Her Sister “Why bother asking the questions you will never get the answers to.” Indeed.
Chronology of important dates
1965 born, fifth child and only girl
1979 first real painting, a bang-on portrait of Lee Doyle
1983 met future husband
1984 took up graphic design
1986 married husband
1989 put down graphic design, took up breast feeding
1990 mother died
1992 produced second son, returned to painting
1999 participated in first art show
2003 created non-profit incorporation to help artists be better business people
2007 formalized commitment to Buddhism
2008 still married
CV
EXHIBITIONS
june 2008 Trio: a group show, hang man gallery
june 2008 Riverdale Art Walk
april 2008 First Unitarian Church, Sunderland Hall, Toronto
march 2008 Toronto Art Expo
feb 2008 Art at the Castle, Casa Loma
winter 2008 White Show, hang man gallery, group exhibition, toronto
dec-feb 2007-08 Club One, YMCA Muskoka, group show
november 2007 Little Art Show, fundraiser for the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
november 2007 Who Dunnit, a fundraiser for the Ontario College of Art
november 2007 Chancery Lane Gallery, solo exhibition, bracebridge
october 200 Evoked Emotions Gallery, solo exhibition, georgetown
october 2007 dominion house, solo exhibition, toronto
june 2007 Festival International Montreal en Arts, Montreal
june 2007 The Back Room, exposed, group show, Hang Man Gallery
june 2007 Riverdale Art Walk, toronto
march 2007 Toronto Art Expo, toronto
march 2007 solé gallery, group show, toronto
january 2007 hang man gallery, group show, Light Effect
dominion house, solo exhibition
november 2006 Little Art Show, fundraiser for the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
september 2006 eastern front gallery, solo exhibition, Let Food Be Thy Medicine
november 2005 Motionball, fundraiser in support of the Special Olympics
The Little Art Show, fundraiser for the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
since sept 2005 represented by Denise Roberge Gallery Palm Desert, California
april 2005 Letters for Literacy, Fundraiser for Dixon Hall
march 2005 eastern front gallery, solo exhibition, An Ideal Shelter
november 2004 The Little Art Show, fundraiser for the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
february 2004 eastern front gallery, solo exhibition, Delayed Hesitation
november 2003 The Little Art Show, fundraiser for the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
zeke’s gallery, montreal, solo exhibition, Delayed Hesitation
november 2002 The Little Art Show, fundraiser for the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
june 2002 gallery 1313, solo exhibition, Women as Misogynists
may 2002 RAW (Riverdale Art Walk)
march 2002 steam whistle, group show, The Syndicate
november 2001 gallery 888, solo exhibition, Edibles
may 2001 RAW (Riverdale Art Walk)
march 2001 gallery 888, duo exhibition, Workshop
november 2000 gallery 888, solo exhibition, Not My Mother’s Flowers
october 2000 gallery 1313. group show, Dreams and Nightmares
may 2000 RAW (Riverdale Art Walk)
february 2000 here and now gallery, group show, Twisted Valentine
ART MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
sept 2003 – present Executive Director and founder, Artists’ Network of Riverdale
february 2002 Founder, Eastern Front Gallery, toronto
june 2006 Through the eyes of the artist Lakeshore Arts, juror
2006 - 2001 coordinator, RAW (Riverdale Art Walk)
april 2004 opened “Hang Man”, the gallery face and studio resource centre of the Artists’ Network of Riverdale
2003 founder, launched the Artists’ Network of Riverdale, funded in part by the Ontario Trillium Foundation
launched Eastern Front Gallery, a collective for artists
OTHER RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE
2006 – 07 Riverside District BIA board of directors
2005-06 Shakespeare in the Rough theatre company, Board of Directors
2004 participated in City of Toronto round table discussion about the implementation of the Culture Plan for 2006
2000 to 2004 published works with Border Crossings and Flash Art Magazines
1997 – 99 creator/teacher of “Real Art” an in-class experience in art and art history/appreciation
1993 – 95 education and outreach with the Canadian Opera Company
1996 education and outreach with the National Ballet of Canada
1987 – 89 Art Director with Saffer Advertising
1985 – 87 Graphic Designer, Nasmith and Company
EDUCATION
1987 – 1995 Under-grad degree in Art History, University of Toronto
1984 – 1986 Diploma in Graphic Design, George Brown College
1979 – 1984 Dundas Valley School of Art, Dundas Ontario
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