Beginning on the Junction Arts Festival’s opening night, Wednesday, September 3, the 2008 Juried Art Exhibition will display work from over 70 visual artists, as selected by the 2008 Juried Art Exhibition Committee (Rhonda Nolan, Carmen Victor and Colleen Johnston), and will be presented in traditional settings at two Junction area galleries; Urbanscape Gallery (2959 Dundas St. West) and the Academy of Realist Art (2968 Dundas St. West). Both galleries will host an opening night public reception from 7 PM to 9 PM, and will be open throughout the five-day festival, Wednesday to Sunday (for gallery hours please visit www.junctionartsfest.com).

The Juried Art Exhibition pieces this year were submitted based on three categories of choice; photography, sculpture or painting/drawing, and the artists have studied in a number of disciplines at respected institutions the world over or are self-taught.

The work will be judged by three Toronto professionals (Mary Kainer, Toronto School of Art; Juan Carlos Martinez, Academy of Realist Art; and Persilia Caton, CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival) and the winners will be announced on September 3 during the opening night celebrations at the Junction Arts Festival launch party in the Junction City Square (2960 Dundas St. West at Pacific Ave.) at 9:00 p.m., with the first prize being a one-year scholarship to the Academy of Realist Art (a $7,500.00 value).

And back as a popular feature over the five-day festival, 10–15 Junction area (reputed as an artistic hub) shops, galleries and venues along Dundas West will act as impromptu galleries, which will host, show and sell artwork by visual artists. Detailed information on impromptu gallery artists, exact locations and hours will be available soon at www.junctionartsfest.com.

Additionally, a number of shops will host multimedia, performance art, sound and video indoor installations by such artists as Chris Flanagan and Jennifer Wardle.

As well, the Junction Arts Festival presents two outdoor art installation artists this year; Junction visual artist Robert Hilts and Nathalie Quagliotto.

Robert Hilts’ work, designed as a mediated pavilion and specially erected for the festival with the spirit of the Junction’s centennial celebration in mind, will create an immersion sculpture; one that disassembles common thoughts and experience about our material and social culture as it relates to community. It will be built using materials found in Junction residences, industry or commercial spaces, and will be conceived as a streetscape of building interiors that the public can step into to gain framed views and experience a manipulated sense of the historical industrial processes and working methods used in the Junction over periods of time. It will also provide dispatches of the entertainment and household lifestyles of the area.

Nathalie Quagliotto’s installation, Maturity Correlation, is a swinging sculpture. It displays two swings that are faces together and thus construct the relation of the same object that faces itself to become hazardous. It challenges the viewer’s perception of sculpture by creating an urge to intersect childhood temptation with mature remoteness. Two people can make this participatory sculpture function to it’s full potential if they trust each other to correlate and synchronize their swinging together.

For media information, artist biographies and interviews please contact:

Laurie Lockhart,

Publicist

2008 Junction Arts Festival

Tel: 416-988-2530

Email: gtmessage@sympatico.ca

Web: www.junctionartsfest.com

For general information please contact:

Junction Forum for Art & Culture,

2008 Junction Arts Festival

Tel: 416-767-5036

Email: junctionartsfest@on.aibn.com

Web: www.junctionartsfest.com

Councillor Bill Saundercook (Ward 13, City of Toronto), JFAC Chair