Events' Realm

Supersampler is an exhibition featuring a decade’s worth of work by London-based painter, Mark Stebbins. Inspired by the history of image making, digital media and textiles, Stebbins’ paintings explore the potential of the grid form through realism and abstraction alike.

Often containing thousands of tiny squares hand-painted with hundreds of different tones and hues, Stebbins’ paintings translate source imagery to pose what he calls “visual questions.” By building up and breaking down these images, the artist plays with colour, detail, texture, and contrast to impact what the viewer sees. Here, paint strokes act as stitches and pixels, often distorted.

 A new series employs symbols from historic embroideries found in Museum London’s artifact collection, while other pieces feature vibrant, kaleidoscopic effects that nod to key moments in art history—like 19th-century pointillism and the hard-edge abstraction of the 1950s and 60s. Throughout these diverse influences, Stebbins’ work invites us to reflect on themes of originality, labour, and the evolving role of painting in our increasingly virtual world.

London

Canada

Ontario

421 Ridout Street North

Museum London - Interior Gallery

Mark Stebbins: Supersampler

The shapes of feathers, wings, flowers and leaves combine in a constellation of ceramic and bronze to comprise Forever (Bird-Botanicals), a site-specific installation by Ecuadorian-Canadian sculptor David Constantino Salazar. The work combines recognizable bird anatomy with plant forms to probe the theme of transformation in contemporary culture.

Often representative of freedom, love, peace, and divinity, the symbol of the bird is ripe with meaning. In South American folklore, for example, birds and other animals are evocative of transformation, often shapeshifting between forms in fables. In Museum London’s Atrium, Salazar’s birds are in a state of transition, too, as if between life and death. Here, botanicals grow around misshapen appendages.

To create each element of the work, the artist meticulously hand crafts birds out of clay and throws them against his studio wall. Radically altering their appearance, this act transforms each sculpture into something new entirely. Each component evokes the natural evolution of all living things, as we journey between one state of being to another.

Museum London - Atrium

David Constantino Salazar: Forever (Bird-Botanicals)

Verde Canyon Railroad is proud to be a sponsor of the Phoenix-based wildlife rescue, Liberty Wildlife. All are welcome to visit Verde Canyon Railroad depot for Raptors at the Rails, an educational presentation on the patio on select dates 11:00am-12:45pm. This free event prior to the train’s 1:00 pm departure features close-up glimpses of Arizona raptors such as eagles, hawks, owls, vultures, falcons and kestrels, amazing residents of Liberty Wildlife’s educational program. During the summer months, Liberty shares cold-blooded creatures such as tortoises, lizards and snakes during "Reptiles at the Rails".

Events

Mark Stebbins: Supersampler

David Constantino Salazar: Forever (Bird-Botanicals)

Mark Stebbins: Supersampler

David Constantino Salazar: Forever (Bird-Botanicals)

Raptors (or Reptiles) at the Rails