Sonia Esmaeillou







Surfacing

Abbozzo Gallery, Toronto

Group exhibition





Abbozzo Gallery’s Surfacing brings together a group of artists exploring texture, perception, and the tension between what is seen and what is felt. Across the space, the works seem to hover in a state of in-betweenness, where meaning isn’t always immediately graspable.

To me, one of the more compelling works in the show is Jake Santos’ If He Can’t (2024), a painting that feels like a memory slipping away as you try to hold onto it. The piece depicts a close-up of a woman in a white dress brushing a little girl’s hair, but the image is softened, blurred, as if seen through fogged glass. There’s something deeply nostalgic about it to me - like looking at an old photograph where the details of memory are fading, but the emotion stays strong. The painting captures that strange feeling of remembering something vividly yet also knowing that parts of it are lost to time.

Santos’ other piece, Somewhere Between (2024), carries a similar emotional weight. It’s another blurred scene, this time of a man amongst a small cow herd. The rural imagery adds to the nostalgia, evoking a connection that feels both personal and universal. The use of airbrushes creates a dreamlike atmosphere, making it feel like a moment that exists between reality and imagination; without anything touching the canvas. The haziness makes you wonder - was this a real memory or something imagined, pieced together from bits of different moments?

Bill Boyko’s Surfacing (2024) is what gets my attention next. At first, it looks like a simple underwater scene, with submerged figures floating beneath the surface. But after spending time with it, it seems to be the same figure appearing multiple times, fragmented across the canvas. This repetition, combined with the fluid, shifting quality of water, gives the work an eerie, almost surreal energy. It’s as if the figure is caught between surfacing and sinking, always in motion but never fully arriving.

The exhibition’s statement describes Surfacing as exploring the idea of things being “almost seen” or “caught in transition,” and that sense of uncertainty runs throughout the show. Many of the works feel like they exist just on the edge of recognition - images coming to light but never fully forming. Beyond subject matter, the focus on texture ties everything together. Some pieces have thick, obvious brushstrokes that make the act of painting itself a focal point, while others are nearly untouched, allowing the smooth surface to play a role in the meaning of the work.

Ultimately, Surfacing asks viewers to slow down, to look closer, and to embrace the idea that not everything needs to be fully understood to be felt. Whether through blurred figures, shifting textures, or layered surfaces, the works in this show capture the in-between states of existence the moments that are almost, but not quite, fully realized.











Sources:



https://abbozzogallery.com/exhibitions/80-surfacing-alek-belanger-bill-boyko-charlotte-blake/