Toronto's newest immersive gallery is an old house marked for demolition

The house at 91 Barton Ave. is pretty much impossible to ignore. Stephanie Avery has always thought so, anyway. The Toronto artist has lived near the address for years.

"I bike past the house almost every day. It's always kind of stood out in my head," she tells CBC Arts, and when news of a building proposal was shared on a neighbourhood mailing list, she decided to track down the developers, Green Street Flats, a Toronto-based company that builds high-density housing, a category often referred to as the "missing middle."

If the developers were going to flatten the house at 91 Barton anyway, why not ask if she could turn it into an art project? "You might as well use it for something, right?" So on a whim, Avery sent the developers a pitch. Within 20 minutes, they responded. And roughly two weeks later, she had the keys to the house.

The yard was jungle when Avery first arrived at the site, and the home itself — plus the garages out back — contained piles of possessions, stuff left behind by the previous owners: furniture, linens, books and even a car.

But this Saturday, Avery and her collaborators will be throwing an open house like no other. The property has been rechristened as Art on Barton — an immersive art gallery that's free to explore. And it'll be welcoming visitors on select dates through Aug. 18, with updates and hours of operation posted on Instagram. 

The project came together with the help of more than 30 local muralists, who have been busy since June, transforming the property. The two-storey home is a '70s time capsule, and nearly every interior has been painted. There are murals in the shag-carpeted living room, murals in the kitchen, murals in the bathrooms, murals in each of the three bedrooms, murals in the basement.

Out in the backyard, there's a sculpture installation, and four garages in the laneway have been wrapped in artwork too. In the front garden, there's even more art — including a giant neon tiger doing somersaults on the front porch. That piece, created by Jieun Kim (a.k.a. June) was the first exterior wall to be painted — an early tip-off that something unusual was about to happen in the neighbourhood. And for Avery, building this funhouse has been a dream of a summer vacation. 

A $1,000 microgrant from the Toronto Awesome Foundation provided enough money for Avery and her co-organizers — Jenneen Marie, Jieun Kim and Andre Kan — to provide artists with some basic painting supplies, and they raised extra cash by holding a yard sale, selling objects uncovered while clearing out the property.

As a bonus, she says the yard sale helped acquaint the artists with their neighbours on Barton Ave. "If you see a bunch of people coming in and out wearing respirators and carrying spray paint, now you know why."

The list of participating artists has more than doubled since June. Some of the folks who've contributed to the project include Elicser Elliott, Curtia Wright and Nick Sweetman. (The latter painted an enormous iridescent bubble that drips from the front facade of the house.) 

Co-organizer Jenneen Marie (a.k.a. Pokitoe) has created a black-light installation upstairs, a room inspired by playing cards and prints of religious icons — examples of some of the household ephemera discovered in the space.

Avery's own mural is in the living room. She's painted psychedelic flower petals that erupt from the fireplace, licking the walls like flames. "My original idea was to have this kind of creature, this fiery creature coming out of the fireplace," she says. "it turned into a cleansing fire … like the old coming to an end, and creating space for the new."

A similar theme appears in several of the murals inside the house. Scenes featuring urban wildlife appear throughout, as if nature's reclaimed the property. But Avery didn't give the artists a prescribed creative brief. "I wanted people to just come in and be able to play," she says.

On the Monday before launch, the scene at Art on Barton is a little like a summer clubhouse. There are artists busy on every floor — and out in the yard too. Everyone's sharing supplies and focused on painting. In the kitchen, Chris Perez puts the finishing touches on his installation, a piece inspired by a framed photograph found in the house: a portrait of an old man, whose face is echoed in the swirling mural he has painted in the room. The piece suggests an imagined family history, and Perez has arranged precious souvenirs in a china cabinet — small items including tools from the garage, mini liquor bottles and vintage postcards of Ontario Place and SkyDome.

"The artists are really taking inspiration from the space itself, from the objects that are left behind," says Avery, and several artists have also put those items to practical use. The sculptures out back were cobbled together from old furniture; ironing boards have been repurposed as spraypaint stencils. "The house provides," says Bobby Beckett, Art on Barton's project manager.

"Through the stuff, we kind of created a narrative," says Avery. "But regardless of what the real story is, you knew that a family was here, you knew that love was here, you knew that probably trauma was here, community was here — all the things that come with family," she says. "You can't help but start to pick up on those emotions."

Since work on the project began, Green Street Flats has left the artists to do their thing, says Avery. The developers have taken care of insuring the property during Art on Barton's run, says company president, Leonid Kotov, and they're providing staff to help run the public event. 

Why did they give a bunch of artists access to the property, though? 

"I don't know why it doesn't happen all the time," says Kotov. "The downside is we spend some money and it goes nowhere. You know, maybe the neighbours don't like the art," he says. "But the upside was that we create something really unique and cool and memorable."

"With this project, we were hoping that it would show that development can coexist with creativity and community," says Kotov. "We're not just building structures, we are actually contributing to the cultural fabric of the area."

Avery says Art on Barton is a test case. In the future, she'd love to partner with more developers and transform other vacant buildings that are awaiting demolition. And regarding demolition, the fate of 91 Barton remains unclear. The developer's initial proposal was refused after home owners in the neighbourhood complained to Toronto's Committee of Adjustment. A new hearing has been scheduled for August 14. If the plans for construction are approved, then Art on Barton could be torn down in short order. But as it stands, its next chapter remains TBD.

According to Avery, unpredictability is part of the project's magic. "A few people have asked us how we feel about doing something that's so temporary," she says, "and for us, it just feels cathartic."

"We have such a short window to appreciate this, so we're just going to appreciate the hell out of it."

Art on Barton. Public open house hours: Saturday, Aug. 10 (noon to 7 p.m.); Sunday, Aug. 11 (noon to 5 p.m.); Friday, Aug. 16 (5 p.m. to 8 p.m.); Saturday, Aug. 17 (noon to 7 p.m.); Sunday, Aug. 18 (noon to 5 p.m.). For more information and updates, follow Art on Barton on Instagram.