Jessica Fortner’s My Woodland, My Nightmare

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in New Illustration on Friday 11 December 2009

Jessica Fortner is a Toronto-based freelance illustrator. She creates unique one-of-a-kind hand-sculpted illustrations. Jessica just finished four illustration’s in her on-going series My Woodland, My Nightmare.

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Poutini’s House of Poutine

The Urban Grocer Contributor

By The Urban Grocer in New Food and Packaging on Saturday 5 December 2009

Like maple syrup and ice hockey, nothing says Canada more than poutine: French fried potatoes smothered in cheese curds and then topped with thick, rich gravy. And while most Canadians will argue that the very best poutine can only come from Quebec — where the idea was born — Poutini’s House of Poutine, in Toronto, are looking to give the Quebecois a run for their money. Mon dieu! Here, at Poutini’s House, Nick and Fred Laliberte are serving up what has been voted the very best poutine in Toronto.

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Andre Ethier

Gerry Mak Reader Find

By Gerry Mak in New Art on Thursday 5 November 2009

Toronto-based painter Andre Ethier combines traditional painting techniques with flowing, textured brushwork to lend his psychedelic paintings a brooding moodiness that is reminiscent of the work of Ivan Albright as well as that of the Surrealists. Unlike other artists working with similar themes, Ethier’s images are more somber than they are giddily hallucinatory, and the horror he portrays is more nuanced, with vague references to ancient mythology and pop culture

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Turtle: The Incredible Journey

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in New Film on Wednesday 7 October 2009

This beautiful documentary charts the journey of a loggerhead turtle from its traumatic hatching on a Floridian beach and its frantic scramble to make it to the sea, to its battles with the currents as it makes its way on its genetically programmed path of discovery through the temperamental oceans. Partly fictionalized to allow for [...]

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Cracks, the feature length debut of Jordan Scott

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in New Film on Friday 25 September 2009

Directed by Jordan Scott, the daughter of Ridley Scott, and starring the sensual Eva Green, Cracks is an unsettling, yet tragically beautiful movie set in the lush surrounds of the English countryside and featuring a Lord of the Flies-ish storyline in which a group of English boarding school students turn on a new Spanish-born classmate when they feel threatened by her evident exotic-ness and worldliness. With a dark subtext in which boundaries between teacher and student and the students themselves are increasingly blurred, and beguiling cinematography, this film, which I saw at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, provides plenty of talking points, not the least of being the stunning performance of Green as the teacher whose fantasises about a life that she had never had the opportunity to live ultimately lead to a calamitous outcome.

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Dorian Gray, as directed by Oliver Parker

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in New Film on Friday 18 September 2009

Whilst in Toronto last weekend for the International Film Festival, I caught a screening of Dorian Gray, the superbly realised adaptation of the Oscar Wilde classic which first appeared nearly 100 years ago in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and now stars the unheralded Ben Barnes and the meticulously brilliant Colin Firth. Directed by Oliver Parker, the [...]

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Orn

Gerry Mak Reader Find

By Gerry Mak in New Music on Tuesday 1 September 2009

Toronoto-based guitarist and vocalist Adam Cooper explained to me that he wants to make people sick with his band, Orn, much the way French shock films such as Irreversible do. When the trio hit the stage at the Smiling Buddha in Toronto, I understood exactly what he meant.

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Nicholas Aoki’s Goodnight; Sweet, Hearts

Erin Letson Reader Find

By Erin Letson in New Events on Tuesday 18 August 2009

Paintings from Nicholas Aoki’s new solo exhibition, Goodnight; Sweet, Hearts blur two worlds — one of mortals and one of Gods, skeletons and creature spirits. The Toronto-based Aoki uses watercolors and acrylics to create rich landscapes that he layers with the characters in this journey to death. And while the paintings contain a dark subject [...]

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Liam Sharp’s Drag Queens portraits

Alison Zavos Contributor

By Alison Zavos in New Photography on Wednesday 12 August 2009

These shots of drag queens by Toronto photographer Liam Sharp were taken backstage at various clubs in the village. Of the series, Sharp says: ‘I’m afraid to send them out. I don’t want to be known as the drag queen photographer. The dilemma of a commercial photographer’s struggle, especially in Canada, is that Canadians are so literal. Internationally, the depth and range of what is accepted is so much greater. It’s understood that it’s not me that these pictures represent. Rather, an interesting plot that is graphic and photographic’.

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Solvent

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in New Music on Friday 24 July 2009

Toronto-based producer, and co-founder of the awesome Suction Records label, Jason Amm (aka Solvent) creates ‘robot music too complex and contemporary to sound like it was recorded in 1981, and too seeped in the time-honoured traditions of melody, songwriting and hands-on synthesis to be lost in the overcrowded world of IDM’. This uplifting, propulsive track, [...]

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Timber Timbre

Erin Letson Reader Find

By Erin Letson in New Music on Wednesday 22 July 2009

Toronto-based Timber Timbre’s third self-titled studio release keeps a soft and moody vibe with eight simply structured songs that seem meant for listening to in the dark. Taylor Kirk, the man behind the project, has a singing voice that’s both folky and restrained. He calls on other artists to fill in strings, banjo and accompanying [...]

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Nicholas Di Genova

Ben Keys Reader Find

By Ben Keys in New Art on Friday 17 July 2009

The creatures of Nicholas Di Genova’s imagination occupy a strange space between the petting zoo and the apocalypse. The Toronto illustrator develops entire structured communities of twisted beasts that often blur the lines between animal and machine, yet somehow even his hound of Hades ends up looking cuddly (possibly because it’s half chicken). Recent projects have included painstakingly detailed ballpoint studies of everything from tortoises to flowers to vampire bats. In an upcoming exhibition, another piece will feature a grid of 20,000 butterflies. Hey, the man likes details.

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Toronto’s FRANK restaurant

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in Architecture on Wednesday 15 July 2009

Designed by — and named after – the iconic architect Frank Gehry, Toronto’s FRANK is a tasty complement to the Art Gallery of Ontario, located, as it is, within the building’s beautiful surrounds. The interior design is stunning: modern, chic, and urbane, it’s a work of art in its own right, featuring modern Danish furnishings and an installation of Frank Stella’s work. And the restaurant itself benefits from the oversight of executive chef Anne Yarymowich, who has created a small but delightful menu, showcasing local wines and seasonal ingredients.

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The Red Tea Box, Toronto

Zolton Contributor

By Zolton in New Food and Packaging on Friday 10 July 2009

Walking down Toronto’s Queen Street West a few weeks back, we were momentarily distracted (if an hour or two counts as momentarily) by the cake-y delicacies that adorned the store window of The Red Tea Box. Oh boy! This place is like that scene out of Hansel and Gretel where they stumble upon the Gingerbread House, only the treats here are Tea Cakes and the decorations on them should probably be hanging on the walls of a local gallery. These cakes are stunning. Almost too good to eat. Mind you, that didn’t stop us. [photos by Alison Zavos]

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Liz Wolfe

Alison Zavos Contributor

By Alison Zavos in New Photography on Thursday 9 July 2009

Born in the Canadian prairies, Liz Wolfe studied photography at Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts in Toronto. We asked her how much of her work evolves from experimentation and how much is carefully thought out from the beginning?
‘I only experiment in the pre-production stage, never during shooting. Occasional scenarios have arisen in which I’ve altered elements of the photograph slightly during shooting, but these situations are extremely rare. Typically, everything is sketched out, color-coded, planned in advance. I know exactly what the final photograph is going to look like before I start shooting. And I mean exactly!’

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