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36 - The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday November 21, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com Suburbia takes centre stage at Oakville Galleries By Krissie Rutherford OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF The cookie--cutter homes with two-car garages and swimming pools, the grid-lock on the highway and the big box stores. These classic characteristics of suburban life are but a few covered in Is there a there there? Curator Marnie Fleming is hoping the subject of the latest show at Oakville Galleries will strike a chord with local residents. "Because so much of our program was dealing with urban sprawl, I thought, `Why don't we do a show here?'" said Fleming. "This show is really timely for all these issues that are taking place in town right now." Development in north Oakville, an influx of thousands of residents expected over the next few years, and urban planning by local government is among the many factors in town that make the show relevant. "To me, the word sprawl is on the lips of so many people here in Oakville," said Fleming. "It just sort of pointed to me that this show is really ripe." Fleming won a curatorial competition held by the National Gallery of Canada and was given the opportunity to look at the collection to create a show of her own. She decided to focus on suburbia, specifically from the 1950s onward. Is there a there there? looks at the suburban dream ­ the identical homes and lots, as well as the inverse ­ the big box stores, conformity and gridlock. DEREK WOOLLAM / SPECIAL TO THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS THERE A THERE HERE? Oakville Galleries curator Marnie Fleming poses with a cardboard construction of suburbia called Capital Z by artist Roland Brener. It's one of many works included in the current exhibition at Centennial Square and in Gairloch Gardens, Is there a there there? which showcases various interpretations of suburban life. "It really is about what is this place that we're working in and living in," said Fleming. "This is my hope, that this show will touch on different aspects of how and where we live." A piece that takes over much of Centennial Square is a cardboard construction of suburbia called Capital Z by Roland Brener. "It's kind of these monopoly style houses that all look the same, buffered up by business buildings," said Fleming. Music is emitted as a moving rod hits different parts of the display. "It talks to the isolation different groups often feel when brought together in suburban situations," said Fleming. Also at Centennial Square are several pieces of wall art, including Ken Lum's sign for Mepple Falls Shopping Centre. At the bottom of the sign it reads: Save our Town. Save our jobs. Don't let Mepple Falls die. "This raises a lot of questions about what's happened here," said Fleming. "Have big box stores moved in?" This is contrasted by Roy Arden's Monster House in Coquitlam B.C. It's a lone man- "This is my hope, sion on a hilltop, that this show and in the distance, will touch on you see the closedifferent aspects knit Vancouver of how and housing district. "It looks like it's where we live." puffed up on steroids," Fleming Oakville Galleries said of the mansion. curator "I think it's a very Marnie Fleming gloomy look." Another home in the show is Tony Brown's model, based on a 1950s home. At Gairloch Gardens, it spins more than 100 times a minute while a light is cast on the home that reads things like `Can't sleep,' `Get up' and `Go to work.' "It's all about the mundane things we do every day, like made breakfast, walked the dog, went to work," said Fleming. "It's really addressing the kind of merry-go-round of suburban existence, spinning out of control." That mundane nature of suburban life is echoed in Breakstand by Euan Macdonald. It's a video of a driver who has a foot on the See Cars page 37