Project for Calendar Studies

David Eustace, Project for Calendar Studies

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace

Installation view of Project for Calendar Studies by David Eustace


Main Gallery
Project for Calendar Studies
David Eustace
March 31, 2011 – April 30, 2011

From March 31 – April 30, 2011, Open Studio presented Project for Calendar Studies, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn, New York-based artist David Eustace. The exhibition was accompanied by a text by Slocan Valley, BC-based curator Deborah Loxam-Kohl.

Project for Calendar Studies includes large canvas monoprints created by hanging the canvases at three-month intervals along the wall of a tidal industrial canal in Brooklyn. Symbols, notations and references used to account for and keep track of time—such as lunar phases, tide tables and constellation movement—were stenciled, photo-etched, and screenprinted on the canvas beforehand. Created primarily with oxides, such as raw iron filings, these images were then “developed” by the rise and fall of the tide during the installation; once removed from the canal and returned to the artist’s studio, each piece was then reinterpreted in light of the marks made on the canvas while in the canal.

Eustace’s large monoprints document rhythms that underwrite our existence, such as tides and the spinning of the earth; the exhibition focuses the viewer’s attention on these rhythms, and asks them to consider their relationship to them. Working from an open-air rooftop studio, his practice employs experimental print techniques to record and recast natural rhythms, such as the tides, the movements of the stars or the cyclical nature of the seasons. His work references these rhythms both as subject and as part of the process of making the work. Using site-specific installations as both technical and conceptual points of departure, Eustace invites viewers to explore the often paradoxical ways in which we “know” and encounter our environment. According to Loxham-Kohl’s accompanying essay, Eustace’s work “requires us to access the shared knowledge of our surroundings and through the contrast in local environment/external environment creates a reference point from which we are able to recognize where we are and are not capable of effecting change.”

During the opening reception, David Eustace was interviewed by ArtSync‘s Michael Hansen. Click here to watch the interview on Vimeo.

David Eustace grew up in Toronto and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, where he draws, paints, and makes prints using both traditional and experimental techniques. Recent public art installations include Project for Canal (Brooklyn), which received support from the Brooklyn Arts Council and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. He has exhibited his work in both Canada and the United States. This was his first solo exhibition in Toronto.

Deborah Loxam-Kohl is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art & Design Fibre program and the inventor of a technique and machine to felt three-dimensional objects in-the-round. She works as an independent curator and directs DLK Design Lab, a multi-disciplinary studio, from her base camp in the Slocan Valley, BC.

Exhibition Brochure: Download Brochure Here