Katina Schell wears fours dresses at Loplops art exhibit

Sassy lady and talented local artist Katina Schell will be presenting "And She Wears Four Dresses", a collection of artwork, at Loplops Lounge beginning April 7th.

"And She Wears Four Dresses" combines mixed media including oil and acrylic and both borrowed and found objects, creating a "matriarchal lineage contained within her own uniquely feminine connection to people and the planet."

The Loplops Lounge Exhibit Opening being held on Thursday, April 7th, an event that has quietly been dubbed 'Katinafest,' will be a multi-media event replete with sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch. The exhibit opening will feature guest speakers, a variety of local spoken word poets, non-vocal musical performers, songwriters, and of course, the artist herself.

Doors open at 7:00 pm.

The following review of Schell's "And She Wears Four Dresses" was provided by Dr. Alanna F. Bondar from Algoma University's Department of English and Fine Arts.

"Katina Larissa Schell’s show And She Wears Four Dresses (2005) combines pieces of shadow-boxed mixed media and oil/acrylic paintings. With objects borrowed from “Mother Earth,”—namely sea shells, Lake Superior drift, and amber— Schell creates a matriarchal lineage contained within her own uniquely feminine connection to people and the planet. This deep appreciation for a ‘natural’ beauty aesthetic that is neither forced, nor manufactured is complemented by elegantly elongated paintings in which fragments of the human body explore the space around it. Such variety in this show speaks to Schell’s talents as an artist to move paint, and objects into a contemplative milieu.

While Schell explores what it is that ‘makes the woman,’—by seeking identity within the telling/keeping of secrets; the finding/sharing of wisdoms; and the knowing/questioning of intuition—the most compelling conclusion for viewers of this collection remains in the shifting veils of feminine complexity. And She Wears Four Dresses is as much about the external layers of falsehood each of us pile on to function in the world, as it is about how easily these veils, particularly for women, may be stripped to the core to reveal vulnerability and desire.

The spectator’s jouissance then, is found within Schell’s play as a poet-of-aesthetics, through which wholeness is sought against the diminishing and fracturing of the human spirit. To this end, the body and what the body travels through blend boundaries between self and other within a theoretical series of Chinese boxes. This Zen-like collapsing of time and territory within the walls of the canvas—celebrated through fragments of seduction and intense frivolity—dissolve human fear. Herein, passages of time are not guarded by the clock or the calendar, but by the findings of the heart. Thus, what Schell does not present within the confines of the frame becomes as important as what the canvas reveals. As viewers then, the few small remaining Chinese silk-covered boxes, like the concentric circles of our own central core, remain ours to give."

The gallery at Loplops Lounge regularly hosts exhibitions featuring the works of various local and regional artists. Each display opens with a formal event and an opportunity to meet the artist. The lounge's mandate is to support local, regional and international artists.

Loplops Lounge is located at 651 Queen Street East (next to the Duke of Windsor). For more information, visit www.loplops.com"

Pictured above: Laughing by Katina Schell