faceless: Works from the Permanent Collection

Brian Burnett Canadian, born 1952 Single Son, 1985 acrylic on foam core Collection of the MacLarenArtCentre, Gift of Sharron and Reuben Rodney, 2000
Brian Burnett
John Scott
September 9, 2011 - January 6, 2012
Curator: 
Ben Portis
Location: 
Joan Lehman Gallery

An anonymous man; an anonymous boy—they could be anyone really. A wild-eyed stick man; a generic mouse—stock characters from an alternate universe of cartoons.

In the 1980s, Toronto artists Brian Burnett and John Scott ripped the masks away from society as they saw it and portrayed a world in the raw. Their intentionally incomplete characters are simultaneously poignant and ribald.