Une galerie pour toutes les jeunes passionees

Film students Luke Correia-Damude, Ryan Hughes and Patrick Struys not only make art, but also run an art gallery for their colleagues. By opening Whippersnapper, they've demonstrated that the drive and energy to accomplish their idealistic goals for young artists everywhere comes with innovation to spare for the gallery scene. And people are noticing. The "Opening Show" at Whippersnapper attracted a whopping 700 people on its first night and featured over 100 works by 75 artists - average age 22 - from across Canada. Founders Correia-Damude, Hughes and Struys are 20-year-olds themselves, and must be applauded for not wasting any time in establishing a gallery for youngsters, by youngsters. They have mandated Whippersnapper to exclusively support young artists entering the art world, and are so set on achieving this philanthropic good deed that over 70 percent of the applicants for the first show were accepted.

It is with good reason that art galleries are inaccessible to the inexperienced, as most of Whippersnapper's clearly student works proved. Though the majority of the artists in Opening Show won't become the next Picasso, they will at least have contributed to revolutionizing the history of art galleries. Whippersnapper's founders have committed to putting the small operating fee (the only charge artists face, as it is a non-profit, commission-free gallery) back into the gallery to continue to benefit and invest in future exhibitors. Could Whippersnapper's founders be leading the charge in banishing commercial cutthroat galleries? Time will tell, and at this point Whippersnapper's lease is only 4 months.

In an interview with Hughes, The Strand learned there are plans in the works to make Whippersnapper exhibitions more interactive, with more attention paid to installations and live art, encouraging attendants to have experiences beyond the visual alone. That means the three live bands, performance art and an impromptu live painting on a shared canvas by Hughes, Jenifer Leo and Matthew Fraser may become standard fare at Whippersnapper. "We want the gallery experience to be like going to a carnival," said Hughes, in contrast to the traditional gallery environment notorious for being restrictive in nature and quite snooty.

Still, the tradition of what to exhibit - paintings, photography and sculpture - will continue to be practiced at Whippersnapper, even though most of it was not of notable quality at Opening Show. However, pursuing the glimmer that the less traditional works offered, as Hughes hinted, would set Whippersnapper apart from other galleries in a way far more promising for the future of art and its galleries than simply acting as a handout to art world rookies.

On now until March 20th. Hours: Thursday & Friday from 3pm-9pm and Saturday from 12pm-6pm.