New Gallery Opening “ The Sixth”
The Sixth 1642 Queen St. Toronto 51st state the download
by Alison Brown
Little men made out of TV tubes and transistors, Bicycle wheels that have pedals that make chimes, Drums with chords. What’s that? Is it a guitar? Is it a vacuum cleaner?
Is C3PO learning to type? None of the above, you have just entered the mad recycled world of Toronto Artist, Iner Souster, who builds experimental musical instruments and fauxbots from trash and salvaged materials.
The environmentally friendly and recycled art supplies are collected from vintage shops, junkyards and donations from Souster’s neighbours in his Parkdale community.
Souster has bravely opened a new gallery in precarious economic times, but his medium is the wave of the future. When I asked him if he was nervous about the success of the gallery opening his answer reflected his positive attitude. “Ha! As far as the business side I guess I am just going to have to wait and see. I am taking a chance, but that is a good thing in my book. I just have to work a little harder at making it good and fresh. I do want The Sixth to be much more then just a boring gallery. I am planning music nights, readings, workshops, rehearsal space and performances for my theater group. I would love to do some filming and photo work out of the room as well. I think it will just have to be trial and error, which is how I approach most of my art.
An incredibly diverse artist, Souster creates using many mediums from sculpted clothing featured on CITY TV fashion shows to Photographic works to painted trees on canvas, and of course his found object sculptings.
He described his artistic journey to me and what has influenced his direction:
“I have been doing art since I was six years old. My parents always enrolled me in classes after school and at nights in artist studios, churches, and other schools. Anywhere an art class was being taught from Toronto to Brampton.
I then went to an art high school called Cawthra Park in Mississauga where I studied visual arts as a major and drama as my minor.
From there I went to Sheridan Collage in Oakville for two years to study photography. That didn’t work out that well and was kicked out both years for being to artsy.
Most of what I do now is self taught or adapted from skills I picked up working in various trades over the years, and I some how found a way to mix that with the arts. The two fields have processes that are quite similar.
I love to work on things, as I am inspired. Whether it be painting, illustrating, photography/video and film, sculpting, all of it really! Most of my teachers over the years have tried to convince me to focus on one field but I find that to limiting. For example the instruments I have built were all used by the band I am currently in called FemBots. We used them for the rhythm track on the latest album “Calling Out”. I videotaped the entire making of the album well over two hundred hours of footage I have dumped on to my computer. From there I made a video for each song on the album and put them up on our site as documentation videos.
I also used a bunch of the fauxbots to make stop motion videos for the song that didn’t make it on the album. From all that footage I also grabbed all the stills I used for designing the album cover and sleeves. We also use it for all of our promotional images as well.
I guess what I am saying is that I like the fact that I am not forced through lack of knowledge to be held up while trying to start and finish what ever projects I am working on at the time.
I also believe that one should always be looking out for new and challenging ideas to stimulate and further open up the possibilities of change and growth. Through the entire process of working on the album my instruments have improved a great amount. When I started making them they were wall pieces or noise makers, now they are instruments you can pick up and play and know that you will make that same sound every time.
I am currently working on a new play with my friend Erin Brandenburg where I will be on stage doing all the Foley work along side with the musicians and the actors.”
I asked Iner if he had any advice for new artists starting out.
“Advice that I would give a young artist starting out is don’t be afraid to push your own limits. Some of my best works and knowledge gained have come out of horrible failure.
Work your ass off, don’t talk about it, do it. Nobody is going to do it for you.
Always listen to advice and critiques but don’t take any of it to hart. Sometimes the smallest of comments can open your mind. Did I mention to never stop working
put your art any and everywhere you can. The more people you can expose to it the better, hanging in bars and restaurants started my career.”
The Sixth 1642 Queen St. Toronto
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=76487207781&ref=ts#/group.php?gid=39264371657&ref=ts
http://www.fembots.net/
http://inersouster.blogspot.com/
http://inersfauxbots.blogspot.com/
http://spaceiner.blogspot.com/
http://junkstruments.blogspot.com/
