Image Credit: "Happiness - Part 1, Video (Still)" Otino Corsano, 2011
Directors: Caroline Ryan & Paul Weeks, Video 0:35

Otino Corsano

Happiness - Part 1

Solo Exhibition
November 3 - 26, 2011

p|m Gallery
1518 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Ontario M6K1T9

http://pmgallery.ca/exhibitions/2011/otino-corsano-happiness

Opening Reception:
Thursday, November 3, 6-9pm

A collection of images culled from online social media sites was the starting point for Otino Corsano’s latest project: Happiness - Part 1.

To further study these found, frozen images, Corsano carefully rendered these moments of repose as ink drawings. His experience as a freelance storyboarder influenced the decision to reproduce the original images as quick ink sketches, preparing them for further expansion into video. The storyboard drawings are organized into three sets of sixteen images each.

Prominent commercial film directors were each provided with one set of drawings in order to reproduce the art stills as moving scenes. The three 30-second “commercials” were produced by: Caroline Ryan, Paul Weeks and Peter Darley Miller (Editor: Ting Poo). Composer John Mark Sherlock provided the supernatural, ambient score for each video. Accordingly, the work comprising Happiness Part - 1 progresses Corsano’s practice of collaborating with professional, commercial creatives to produce his art.

The first digital source material is transformed through a double process of interpretation. Drawn as light pictures of enjoyment, they are suspended further as lingering moving images. The resulting art videos have the look and feel of contemporary lifestyle advertising without a visible product. Happiness is freed from purchase.

An accompanying essay "The Pursuit of Happiness: Corinna Ghaznavi on the Personal Ad Art of Otino Corsano" is available at the gallery and online at:
http://pmgallery.ca/exhibitions/2011/otino-corsano-happiness/statement

This is Otino Corsano’s third solo exhibition with p|m Gallery. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art, University of Toronto and Otis College of Art (Los Angeles), Corsano describes his visual art practice as neo-conceptualist, new genre work since he explores areas of meaning production in a variety of media. His art writings and artist interviews are published in artUS magazine and can also be found online at ARTPOST and Akimblog. Corsano has taught at the University of Toronto and is a Sessional Instructor at OCAD University. He has exhibited in Toronto and abroad.