May 6 - June 6, 2010

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH
Lauchie Reid

Narwhal Art Projects presents THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, Lauchie Reid's first solo exhibition.

Adopting the role of archivist, Reid presents a collection of semi-historical, allegorical oil paintings, immortalizing a cast of misfits and their matches. Drawing on a personal mythology developed through the formation of his own surreptitious college fraternity, Reid explores the rationale and consequences behind people's tendencies to band together against forces they perceive as evil and the reactions expressed when faced with resistance. Championing outlaws in the face of adversity, Reid keys into the nuances of personal relationships through a bittersweet narrative, dark with humor and the inevitable shifts experienced within groups of marginalized visionaries.

Using experiences formed through his art collective, Team Macho, Reid identifies with groups that grow out of a despondence for the bureaucratic and apathetic. Unwilling to conform, Team Macho created their own fraternity and constructed a mythology that both strengthened their cause and antagonized their counterparts. Remaining true to these rites, Reid explores this dynamic on a wider social plane, documenting the different routes that forward thinking individuals take when confronting external forces. Painting in oils and referencing depression-era characters masked in homemade costumes, Reid enforces his alliances with the various generations of the misunderstood and pays tribute to people unconcerned with the trappings of commonly accepted conceptions of success, whose personal imperatives drive them to eschew the conventional standard of happiness and dictate the terms of their own existence.

Lauchie Reid is a Toronto-based artist and illustrator. Raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he attended Sheridan College for Illustration, where he met the other founding members of what would become Team Macho. Through collective work Reid developed a multi-faceted and diverse approach to image making that expresses a love for outmoded techniques and aesthetics, a bizarre sense of humour, and a sadly sweet view of childhood, family and personality. He has exhibited his work as a part of Team Macho in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Bordeaux, San Francisco, Montreal, and Amsterdam. Reid has exhibited with Magic Pony as part of Team Macho since 2005 and began exhibiting his solo work with Narwhal in 2008.

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Selected Artwork