Bringing art to Vaughan

Newly opened Kipling Gallery to reflect Italian community

It may be a far cry from the Queen Street art scene, but the Kipling Gallery probably doesn't mind its exclusion. For starters, it's in Woodbridge and the owners there recognize that the establishment must both reflect and respond to its Italian community, ensuring a 'something for everyone' array of works by primarily Canadian artists. It's also a little unique in the fact that its inauguration began with a ribbon-cutting ceremony with his Worship Mayor Michael Di Biase. Unless this was a serious piece of satirical performance art, such an exhibition of formality would be laughable on the Queen Street scene, but in the Woodbridge hood such ceremonies make a strange kind of sense. At the very least, they make art seem 'the big deal' that it should be, worthy of dignitaries, velvet ribbons, and grandiosity.
Ironically, this gallery emerged from a rote business plan which went international before it came back home and made good. Gallery founder Rocco Pannese grew up loving art himself and attended the Ontario College of Art, Sheridan, and various other art institutes around the country. But the cataclysmic moment occurred when he met Group of Seven's Lawren Harris's grandkids. A single sale of their grandfather's work heralded astonishing amounts of cash - a few hundred thousand to be precise, and broke the record for any sale of a Group of Seven painting. From that moment on, Pannese understood art had more than just a pretty face, but that it could actually translate into a concrete form of security.
He began collecting art early on in his Sheridan days when one of his instructors gave him an idea. He asked Pannese to help in the assemblage of 58 year books containing one original work of art made by each student and faculty member. This meant that at the end of the year, each student took home a collection of originals. Despite the fact that the work of his professors is now deemed highly valuable, Pannese recollects that experience as being formative in his history as an art collector.
Pannese's love for art may have begun naively enough with a passion for the image, but it soon evolved into a large-scale industry. Pannese sells art "wholesale" to a number of different countries as well as numerous American cities, well aware of the fact that "what sells in Chicago may not sell in New York". But despite this view to merchandizing, Pannese remains patently opposed to notions of replication, understanding that one's investment in a work hinges on its authenticity as an original.
The Kipling Gallery has no real area of specialization and aims to offer variety to its clientele, however, its mandate was to dispel the myth that all art was essentially too expensive. To accomplish this, Pannese encouraged his represented artists, including Ken Kirkby, Sam Paonessa, Doris Pontieri, Joe Capicotto, Daniel Diaz, Ernesto Manera, Ralph Porter, Peter Kolacz, Victor Nemo, Michael Close and John Laford to create smaller work such that it could be priced accordingly. In this way, the gallery fostered a user-friendly showroom, welcoming to an otherwise wary public about what exactly all the 'fuss' around art is about.
The space also has a pedagogical bent because they host a school from the space with classes ranging from oil painting to drawing. All in all, it's the cultural boost Woodbridge was in dire need of!
The Kipling Gallery is located at 7938 Kipling Avenue, 905.265.2160.

Publication Date: 2003-12-21
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3469