Paul Petro Contemporary Art

Paul Petro Contemporary Art features two floors of exhibition space and has been exhibiting Canadian and international artists by invitation since 1993.

Ho Tam | May 16 – June 21

Ho Tam writes, “Entering the 21st Century, China has proven to be emerging as the next superpower. “Fine China” set off to examine the various issues as a project started in 1997. The first edition was simply a print of re-designed porcelain ware with reference to the history and culture. The second edition became a book project, with written texts that describes each object, in the form of a pseudo-art catalogue. This new edition is another revision, with four new pieces that speaks about the more recent events and political issues related to China.”

The latest photographs, printed this year, are a culmination of this twenty-seven year project.

“Fine China” is an exploration of China’s past and present with a different take on issues within and outside a country of growing influence in the present day, with a collection of 24 photographs based on re-designed porcelains (fine china) with iconic /ironic images. It is a search for China’s identity in the new millennium. 

The video “Fine China” (2000, running time 8:33) transcribes a collection of found and original footage into a display of the original 22 re-designed porcelains that form the basis for the photographs, including images of panda bears, Jackie Chan, Mao and McDonald’s. The video itself is a revisioning of the original Fine China folded blueprint from 1998 and premiered in 2000 with the support of Pleasure Dome (Toronto) for a project titled “Blueprint: A Blueprint for Moving Images in the 21^st Century”. 

Retracing personal and collective memories, “Fine China” provides an alternative perspective for an aging civilization as it re-invents itself into a possible superpower of the future. The photographs capture these images from the video and include more recent images such as the corona virus to reflect the current moment. 

Ho Tam was born in Hong Kong in 1963. His family moved to Toronto in 1978. In 1997 Hong Kong was ceded to China after 157 years of British rule, making Hong Kong a Special Administrative Region of China. In 1998 Ho Tam produced the first edition of “Fina China” as a (now obsolete) blueprint. Two years later came the video, followed by the second edition of “Fine China” in a magazine format in 2014 which included accompanying texts. The third edition of “Fine China” was printed in 2021 and took the format of a chapbook, including four new images to reflect current times.

Ho Tam is a media/visual artist who has worked in advertising and community psychiatry. He received a BA from McMaster University and an MFA from Bard College (NY). From 1996 to 1997, he was a participant at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Tam has exhibited in public galleries and alternative spaces across Canada. Over 15 of his experimental film/video works are in circulation. Tam is also the publisher of Hotam Press, an independent press of artist books, and currently runs a bookshop and gallery of the same name. Ho Tam lives in Vancouver, BC and has been exhibiting at Paul Petro Contemporary Art since 2002. 

Jeanne Randolph  “Pythagoras of the Prairies”

May 16 – June 21

Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present a new photo series by Jeanne Randolph with an accompanying publication launch of “Pythagoras of the Prairies” (2025). This exhibition is a feature co-presentation with the CONTACT Photography Festival.

“The soul of the pre-Socratic Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras transmigrates into a variety of beings, many of which dwell on the Canadian prairies.  Emblematic of each individual being’s circumstance a photograph documents an unintended or ephemeral triangular form comprised of objects, of sunbeams of a shadow, or enigmatic combinations of these.  Most of the sites are unidentifiable, and many of them rather indecipherable concatenations of shade, shapes and rays of light. The intensely saturated colour images seem perhaps to be the consequence of the artist’s irresistible compulsion to perceive triangles anywhere and everywhere. In spite of the laconic philosophical or psychoanalytic phrases that Pythagoras recites in his life as a bug for instance, or as a lizard, a Gimli maiden, even as a cucumber, each situation is absurd and impossible. There is a nihilistic implication regarding human understanding, mirrored in the ambiguity and uninformative imagery of each photograph. The series ends with Pythagoras recounting the details of a dream, a disillusioning conversation between a young Professor of English Literature and Sigmund Freud (who acknowledges he has already been dead more than 80 years and is curious to learn about twenty-first century public life).”

Image credit:  Jeanne Randolph, “I am Πυθαγορασ. Do you recognize this, here at your feet?”, 2025, digital chromogenic print on matte paper, edition of two, 10 x 8 ½ inches

Jeanne Randolph is an autonomous intellectual whose most recent book, “My Claustrophobic Happiness”, depicts the visions suffered by a materialistic bazillionnaire recluse.  The themes therein are characteristic of her ad lib performances, her “ficto-criticism” mode of writing about contemporary visual art and her cultural criticism, all of which are founded in psychoanalytic theory, philosophy and a plentitude of pop culture phenomena such as American football, aphids, advertising, The Technological Ethos, Las Vegas,  language games, hysteria, hankies, doo-dads, comet Kohoutek, commas, and so on.

Jeanne Randolph is one of Canada’s foremost cultural theorists. She is the author of the influential book “Psychoanalysis & Synchronized Swimming” (1991) as well as “Symbolization and Its Discontents” (1997), “Why Stoics Box” (2003), “Ethics of Luxury” (2007), “Shopping Cart Pantheism” (2015) and “My Claustrophobic Happiness” (2020). Dr. Randolph’s previous exhibitions at our gallery, “Prairie Modernist Noir: The Disappearance of the Manitoba Telephone Booth” (2020), and “Parking Lot Pandemic” (2021) were both presented in conjunction with the CONTACT Photography Festival and with accompanying catalogues. “Pythagoras of the Prairies” and a new publication form a trilogy, what Dr. Randolph refers to as her ode to Winnipeg, where she dwelt for many years after Toronto and before her current home base of Waterloo, ON.

More information about the exhibition can be found on the Paul Petro Contemporary Art website, here.