CURRENT SHOW
ceremony of innocence - BILL PENNER
Bill Penner is a full time painter and creative living in Kingston, Ontario. His curiosity, experimentation and theatricality sustained a lifetime spent working in the live performing arts.
Bill enjoys working with a multitude of materials, including paint, ink, graphite, paper, canvas, mylar,Tyvek, repurposed clothing, film, and light.
ceremony of innocence
July 30-August 23 2026 in the FORMAT Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday August 1st 1-4pm Artist in Attendance
The title "ceremony of innocence' is taken from W. B. Yeats poem The Second Coming. The poem retains its relevance 107 years after Yeats set it down at the end of the horror that we now call WW1. As we waver on the edge of another in a seemingly endless series of global conflagrations, can we ask ourselves if humanity's hour has come at last? Will we see rupture or rapture, and either way, will it be a blood-dimmed tide?
The four pieces in the exhibition reflect on the innocence of mankind, or the lack thereof.
Altarpiece - the work is inspired by the work of conflict photographers, photos taken during the artist's lifetime. Are they innocent?
5 Girls - 5 young girls in an enclosed space. Are they playing? Or are they detained? Are they joyful, or uncertain? Are they innocent?
Look - A man stands, his back to the viewer, transfixed by the object in his hand. What is he looking at, turned away from us, as the world burns? Is he innocent?
Cassandra - As punishment for rejecting his advances, the god Apollo grants Cassandra the gift of prophecy, and the curse of never being believed. How many women today are not believed?
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
-William Butler Yeats
Explore artwork from the exhibition: Please contact the gallery to purchase any of the works below at info@meltstudiogallery.com or 416-893-8664
2026 FORMAT GALLERY SHOW DATES
August 27-September 20 JAN MILLS
September 24 - October 18-TBD
October 23-November 15-TBD
November 20- December 13-TBD
Interested in Exhibiting in the Format Gallery? Apply below.