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The Globe and Mail, Saturday, February 7, 1998
Gillian MacKay

Gallery Going
Pairing at Archive


No one sent roses? Or even a valentine? Count your lucky stars. This barbed look at intimacy, opening with Catherine Heard’s snarling pairs of cloth animals and her bandaged doll with bloodstained heart, suggests that solitude is the safest strategy. Anda Kubis’s amusingly cynical paintings of diamond rings and David Blatherwick’s obsessive, world-weary paintings filled with the word "everyday" reek of soured romance. Looking at Steven Spazuk’s over-the-top portrait of his partner, Isabelle, you could almost believe in true love. In 144 small canvas squares, combined to form a quilt-like whole, this paragon is praised with photos, drawings, poetry and text such as "fais moi un bébé." And then you start to wonder…Why is this painting for sale? Until March 28.