• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16
• 17
• 18
• 19
• 20
• 21
• 22
• 23
• 24
• 25
• 26
• 27
• 28
• 29

Queen Suite
Thirty street rubbings from the Queen West area

After the great success of Micro>macro at the Laboratoire d’art in June 2007 , Padejo relaunched the same exhibition at Propeller Gallery  in  October of the same year, together with Queen Suite, a series of street rubbings done during a two week period  between Trinity Bellwoods Park and Ossington Avenue along Queen Street and its neighbouring streets. The rubbings are titled after the location or street name where they were done.

Queen Suite is a dynamic group of small rubbings done on different colour drawing paper using a variety of media such as graphite, oil stick, oil pastels and shoe polish. The work has a gritty urban character to it except for a few  rubbings done at Trinity-Bellwoods Park where the appearance has a more organic feel capturing rich tree bark, twigs and leaf textures.

Another aspect of the Queen Suite rubbings is the use of  text found engraved in hardened concrete, wooden benches and a unique historical plaque in front of Henry Givens Elementary School. The text is carefully selected and interspersed with other shapes and textures so as to not allow it to rule over the visual impact.

One of the more interesting venues of the Queen Suite rubbings was CAMH, the grounds of the old Queen Street Mental Hospital. It was rather amusing to notice how while working there for a couple of hours rubbing signage and ashphalt fissures, Padejo’s behaviour was clearly suspect as that of the hospital residents – a triumvirate of middle aged men, kneeling down on a patch of ground, rubbing on a piece of  paper, completely absorbed and totally oblivious to the peering Queen Street eyes.