Snowball Gallery comes full circle.
Alison Snowball opened Snowball Gallery on Queen Street West a year ago. The gallery is holding its final exhibition, 'One Year Lease [Not for Sale]', until Saturday.
Staff photo/ERIN HATFIELD
Art galleries on West Queen West pop up and fade out like spring flowers.
DK Gallery of Contemporary Urban Photography closed in September and made way for Gallery West. A hidden gallery on Milky Way called 47, directed by artists Jaclyn Quaresma and Dennis Lin, has reversed back to a private studio.
Now Snowball Gallery, at 1690 Queen St. W, has come full circle from its beginning exactly one year ago.
But this is just the natural progression, according to Alison Snowball, the 29-year-old former finance worker turned gallery owner/operator.
"In terms of doors closing and opening and when it comes to focusing your energies, you do have to shut it down and then ... reinvention and reconstruction," Snowball said. "Part of why I feel comfortable keeping things changing is because there are wider changes out there than just me."
The gallery and workshop opened a year ago with the show One Year Lease. This show paralleled Snowball's mother being diagnosed with brain cancer.
Snowball had given herself the year to operate the space - itself an art work in progress - to look at themes of life, lease and change.
"I could keep it going, but I like the idea of it being an encapsulated project," Snowball said. "It really, I think, has served all the right purposes in terms of number of community shows and working with schools and working with artists."
The space outlived Snowball's mother, who died in August. Bringing the project full circle, Snowball said, helps to construct a bridge to whatever is next in her ever-changing reality.
"It is just a lesson that things don't last." Snowball said. "When people start getting comfortable with an idea you have to take it away from them."
Originally from North York, Snowball has been living in Parkdale for the past year, but now plans to move to the Junction. A self-taught painter, she said the past year running the gallery was a valuable experience.
"It has been a real good experiment," she said. "I wanted to experience and learn as much as possible about the various media and the workings."
She wanted to bring the project full circle, so the final show at Snowball Gallery, titled One Year Lease [Not For Sale], features remounted pieces representing a number of previous shows as well as some new pieces. A group exhibition, with works by Shlomi Greenspan, Christofer Hutch, Aaron Li-Hill, Dani Nash, Christian Toth, Studio 1:1, Shawn Skier and Snowball herself, runs until Saturday.
There will be a closing reception tomorrow night, from 7 to 11 p.m. where people are invited to say farewell and welcome change.
After the show, the gallery will close but its end won't leave a lack of space for art, Snowball said.
"There is so much room for art, space is not the issue," she said. "It is more about the ideas and being able to put together a comprehensive show, and that doesn't need to be here."
Snowball is working on a book of photography and text about her experience at Snowball Gallery.
"It is sort of the encapsulation of the year for me," she said. "It tells the whole story about the space and my life and my mom, which has all been inevitably interwoven."